Hidden History of Civil War Savannah
Hidden History of Civil War Savannah

Author: Michael L. Jordan

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2017-05-29

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1625851804

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Savannah, Georgia was home to one of the most notable Civil War moments, naval battles, and has a deep Civil War past. Noted local filmmaker and author tells the stories of Savannah's deep engagement in the conflict. Union general William T. Sherman cemented Savannah's most notable Civil War connection when he ended his "March to the Sea" there in December 1864. However, more fascinating stories from the era lurk behind the city's ancient, moss-draped live oaks. A full-scale naval battle raged between ironclad warships just offshore. More than seven thousand prisoners were confined in the area surrounding Forsyth Park. And on March 21, 1861, the present-day Savannah Theatre was the site of one of the most inflammatory and controversial speeches of the entire war. Noted local filmmaker and author Michael Jordan delves deep into this fabled city's Civil War past.

Forever Free
Forever Free

Author: Eric Foner

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2013-06-26

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0307834581

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From one of our most distinguished historians, a new examination of the vitally important years of Emancipation and Reconstruction during and immediately following the Civil War–a necessary reconsideration that emphasizes the era’s political and cultural meaning for today’s America. In Forever Free, Eric Foner overturns numerous assumptions growing out of the traditional understanding of the period, which is based almost exclusively on white sources and shaped by (often unconscious) racism. He presents the period as a time of determination, especially on the part of recently emancipated black Americans, to put into effect the principles of equal rights and citizenship for all. Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, he places a new emphasis on the centrality of the black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and–even more actively–in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war’s end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment. He shows us that the birth of the Ku Klux Klan and renewed acts of racial violence were retaliation for the progress made by blacks soon after the war. He refutes lingering misconceptions about Reconstruction, including the attribution of its ills to corrupt African American politicians and “carpetbaggers,” and connects it to the movements for civil rights and racial justice. Joshua Brown’s illustrated commentary on the era’s graphic art and photographs complements the narrative. He offers a unique portrait of how Americans envisioned their world and time. Forever Free is an essential contribution to our understanding of the events that fundamentally reshaped American life after the Civil War–a persuasive reading of history that transforms our sense of the era from a time of failure and despair to a threshold of hope and achievement.

Sherman's March in Myth and Memory
Sherman's March in Myth and Memory

Author: Edward Caudill

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009-08-15

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780742550285

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General William Tecumseh Sherman's devastating "March to the Sea" in 1864 burned a swath through the cities and countryside of Georgia and into the history of the American Civil War. As they moved from Atlanta to Savannah--destroying homes, buildings, and crops; killing livestock; and consuming supplies--Sherman and the Union army ignited not only southern property, but also imaginations, in both the North and the South. By the time of the general's death in 1891, when one said "The March," no explanation was required. That remains true today. Legends and myths about Sherman began forming during the March itself, and took more definitive shape in the industrial age in the late-nineteenth century. Sherman's March in Myth and Memory examines the emergence of various myths surrounding one of the most enduring campaigns in the annals of military history. Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown provide a brief overview of Sherman's life and his March, but their focus is on how these myths came about--such as one description of a "60-mile wide path of destruction"--and how legends about Sherman and his campaign have served a variety of interests. Caudill and Ashdown argue that these myths have been employed by groups as disparate as those endorsing the Old South aristocracy and its "Lost Cause," and by others who saw the March as evidence of the superiority of industrialism in modern America over a retreating agrarianism. Sherman's March in Myth and Memory looks at the general's treatment in the press, among historians, on stage and screen, and in literature, from the time of the March to the present day. The authors show us the many ways in which Sherman has been portrayed in the media and popular culture, and how his devastating March has been stamped into our collective memory.

When Sherman Marched North from the Sea
When Sherman Marched North from the Sea

Author: Jacqueline Glass Campbell

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2006-05-26

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 0807876798

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Home front and battle front merged in 1865 when General William T. Sherman occupied Savannah and then marched his armies north through the Carolinas. Although much has been written about the military aspects of Sherman's March, Jacqueline Campbell reveals a more complex story. Integrating evidence from Northern soldiers and from Southern civilians, black and white, male and female, Campbell demonstrates the importance of culture for determining the limits of war and how it is fought. Sherman's March was an invasion of both geographical and psychological space. The Union army viewed the Southern landscape as military terrain. But when they brought war into Southern households, Northern soldiers were frequently astounded by the fierceness with which many white Southern women defended their homes. Campbell argues that in the household-centered South, Confederate women saw both ideological and material reasons to resist. While some Northern soldiers lauded this bravery, others regarded such behavior as inappropriate and unwomanly. Campbell also investigates the complexities behind African Americans' decisions either to stay on the plantation or to flee with Union troops. Black Southerners' delight at the coming of the army of "emancipation" often turned to terror as Yankees plundered their homes and assaulted black women. Ultimately, When Sherman Marched North from the Sea calls into question postwar rhetoric that represented the heroic defense of the South as a male prerogative and praised Confederate women for their "feminine" qualities of sentimentality, patience, and endurance. Campbell suggests that political considerations underlie this interpretation--that Yankee depredations seemed more outrageous when portrayed as an attack on defenseless women and children. Campbell convincingly restores these women to their role as vital players in the fight for a Confederate nation, as models of self-assertion rather than passive self-sacrifice.

Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott

Author: Madeleine B. Stern

Publisher: UPNE

Published: 1999-08-26

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9781555534172

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Chronicles the life and literary success of the author of the enduring classic, "Little Women."

Remaking North American Sovereignty
Remaking North American Sovereignty

Author: Jewel L. Spangler

Publisher: Fordham University Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0823288471

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North America took its political shape in the crisis of the 1860s, marked by Canadian Confederation, the U.S. Civil War, the restoration of the Mexican Republic, and numerous wars and treaty regimes conducted between these states and indigenous peoples. This crisis wove together the three nation-states of modern North America from a patchwork of contested polities. Remaking North American Sovereignty brings together distinguished experts on the histories of Canada, indigenous peoples, Mexico, and the United States to re-evaluate this era of political transformation in light of the global turn in nineteenth-century historiography. They uncover the continental dimensions of the 1860s crisis that have been obscured by historical traditions that confine these conflicts within its national framework.

From Rail-splitter to Icon
From Rail-splitter to Icon

Author: Gary L. Bunker

Publisher: Kent State University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 9780873387019

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A copiously illustrated history of the development of Lincoln's public profile. From Rail-Splitter to Icon is enriched by editorial, news, poetic, and satirical content from contemporary periodicals artfully woven into a topical narrative. The Lincoln images, originally appearing in such publications as Budget of Fun, Comic Monthly, New York Illustrated News, Phunny Phellow, Southern Punch, and Yankee Notions, significantly expand our understanding of the evolution of public opinion toward Lincoln, the complex dynamics of Civil War, popular art and culture, the media, political caricature, and presidential politics. Because of the timely emergence and proliferation of the illustrated periodical, and the convergence of representational technology and sectional conflict, no previous president could have been pictured so fully. But Lincoln also appealed to illustrators because of his distinctive physical features. (One could scarcely conceive of a similar book on James Buchanan, his immediate predecessor.) Despite ever-improving techniques, Lincoln pictorial prominence competed favorably with any succeeding president in the nineteenth century.

The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott
The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott

Author: Louisa May Alcott

Publisher: Citadel Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780806516547

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From the author of anonymous and pseudonymous tales comes a collection on nine newly discovered stories uncovered by tireless literary detective work.

First Among Equals
First Among Equals

Author: Hans Louis Trefousse

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0823224686

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"In this book, a leading historian finally takes the full measure of Lincoln's reputation. Drawing on a range of primary documents - speeches, newspaper accounts and editorials, private letters, memoirs, and other sources - Hans L. Trefousse gives us the voices of Lincoln's own time. From citizens North and South, at home and abroad, here are politicians and ordinary people, soldiers and statesmen, abolitionists and slaveholders alike, in a rich chorus of American opinion. Trefousse carefully crafts a clear picture of how his contemporaries measured Lincoln's great strengths - and shortcomings."--BOOK JACKET.

1865 Alabama
1865 Alabama

Author: Christopher Lyle McIlwain

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2017-09-12

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 0817319530

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A detailed history of a vitally important year in Alabama history The year 1865 is critically important to an accurate understanding of Alabama's present. In 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr. examines the end of the Civil War and the early days of Reconstruction in the state and details what he interprets as strategic failures of Alabama's political leadership. The actions, and inactions, of Alabamians during those twelve months caused many self-inflicted wounds that haunted them for the next century. McIlwain recounts a history of missed opportunities that had substantial and reverberating consequences. He focuses on four factors: the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves, the destruction of Alabama's remaining industrial economy, significant broadening of northern support for suffrage rights for the freedmen, and an acute and lengthy postwar shortage of investment capital. Each element proves critically important in understanding how present-day Alabama was forged. Relevant events outside Alabama are woven into the narrative, including McIlwain's controversial argument regarding the effect of Lincoln's assassination. Most historians assume that Lincoln favored black suffrage and that he would have led the fight to impose that on the South. But he made it clear to his cabinet members that granting suffrage rights was a matter to be decided by the southern states, not the federal government. Thus, according to McIlwain, if Lincoln had lived, black suffrage would not have been the issue it became in Alabama. McIlwain provides a sifting analysis of what really happened in Alabama in 1865 and why it happened--debunking in the process the myth that Alabama's problems were unnecessarily brought on by the North. The overarching theme demonstrates that Alabama's postwar problems were of its own making. They would have been quite avoidable, he argues, if Alabama's political leadership had been savvier.