Civil War Soldiers

Description

The soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were united by a common history, and yet the legacy of this past was ambiguous, upholding both rebellion and union. Union and Confederate men went to war as Americans, convinced they fought an un-American, savage enemy. The war they fought was as emotional and catastrophic as any in history, a violent crucible that forged a new national identity. Civil War Soldiers is a fresh and compelling attempt to fathom the war’s significance—then and now—and makes immediate the charged issues and bitter ironies of a nation torn by a conflict over the common ideals of liberty and justice.

Drawing on diaries and letters, the focus of this pioneering study is on the men who fought, caught up in a conflict whose causes and consequences seemed as complex and contradictory to the soldiers themselves as they do to us. Reid Mitchell re-creates their experience and discusses the questions one would have most wanted to ask them: Why did you fight? How did you feel about slavery and race? What did you take home from the war? What legacy have you left us?

“Fresh insights, startling descriptions, and poignant human detail about the war from the men who fought it.”—Chicago TribuneNote to the Penguin Edition
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Wars for Freedom
2. Enemies and Savages
The Enemy Encountered: Prisoners, Deserters, Fellow Soldiers
The Savage Society: The Prisoner and the Prison
3. From Volunteer to Soldier: The Psychology of Service
4. The Landscape of War: The Union Soldier Views the South
The Peopled Landscape
The Threatening Landscape
5. The Confederate Experience
Prologue: Lee’s Invasion of Pennsylvania, 1863
The Confederate Soldier and the Crisis of the South
Confederate Defeat and Southern Morale: A Note
6. The End of the War
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
IndexUS

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