The Civil War Era (review)

Civil War historians are engaged in new research that forces us to rethink traditional interpretations, ask new questions, and investigate subjects previously unexplored. Teachers wanting to expose students to new areas of Civil War studies, especially those dealing with social history, will welcome The Civil War Era, a book that is more than an anthology. Editors Lyde Cullen Sizer and Jim Cullen have crafted a text that incorporates primary and secondary sources with thoughtful introductions and analytical questions to guide students as they read and interpret history.

The book is organized around fifteen themes. Two prewar chapters treat the coming of conflict and justifications for the war. Eleven chapters on the war include the battle front, ties between soldiers and home, the lives of wartime industrial workers, the strains and changes that war imposed upon slavery, the experience of emancipation, resistance to the war, the war on the frontier, wartime politics, gender, popular literature from the war, victory and defeat. The book concludes with two postwar chapters on Reconstruction and memory.

The chapter on the battle front focuses on the experiences of Civil War soldiers, in particular the experience of battle that separated soldiers from civilians and forged a postwar bond between soldiers from both sides. Eric T. Dean, Jr., Shook Over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War serves as the chapter's interpretive study and ably provides descriptions of Civil War battle experiences and psychological trauma. An excerpt from Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage is grouped with the primary sources that consist of letters from three soldiers, one Union, one Confederate, and one a woman posing as a man. These selections expose readers to the personal accounts of soldiers and invite comparisons of what soldiers chose to reveal and not reveal about battle in their letters home.

The chapter on the war in the West focuses narrowly on the involvement of American Indians in the Civil War. An article by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., "The Way to Pea Ridge," details their actions in the battle and describes Confederate efforts to forge an alliance with the Five Nations. A newspaper account of the Sioux executions in Minnesota and an excerpt about a visit to Iowa from Mary Livermore's diary comprise the primary sources. Incidental references to military subjects are scattered in other chapters, especially in reference to African American soldiers, but traditional military and political history are among the subjects excluded from the book.

The editors' decision to exclude traditional subjects is due in part to a desire to introduce readers to new areas of Civil War studies, to follow roads not yet traveled. Yet, the editors' interest in military subjects is also limited to soldiers' experiences, an emphasis on social history that reflects the view of many, perhaps most, new scholars in the field. The Civil War Era will be a popular, valuable text, but it is also an illustration of Civil War historians relegating military history to the margins of their field.