In this Book
- The Battle-Ground
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: The University of Alabama Press
Captures the war's human toll and explores its social consequences
The Battle-Ground, Ellen Glasgow's fourth novel, was her first bestseller, with more than 21,000 copies sold in just two weeks. The novel committed her to a project almost unparalleled in American literary history: a novelistic meditation on the South from the decade before the Confederacy to the middle of the 20th century. The Battle-Ground speaks of a South before and during the Civil War in its struggles to become part of a nation still in the making. The overthrow of the aristocratic tradition, the transfer of hereditary power to a rural underclass, the continued disenfranchisement of African Americans, and the evolving status of women--these topics, which came to bind the more than a dozen volumes of Glasgow's self-styled "social history," initially coalesced in The Battle-Ground.
The Battle-Ground conspicuously departs from the tradition of Southern romances popularized by Thomas Nelson Page, and contemporary reviewers praised the book for its historical accuracy. Glasgow, an ardent Anglophile, bragged that military officers in Great Britain studied its descriptions of battle. With her, realism had not only crossed the Atlantic, it had "crossed the Potomac."
But Glasgow never sensationalizes the Civil War, whose bloodiest scenes she flanks with domestic officers, the sharing of rations, the warmth of camp, and reminders of home. Her vision of the war centers less on its corruption or barbarity than on its occasions for small decencies and their power of humanization. Glasgow cannot separate the war from its greater social implications--it is a place, as her title suggests, that tests the soul of a nation as well as individual men and women. The importance of The Battle-Ground in Southern literary history cannot be overemphasized, for Glasgow's reimagining of the Civil War had a profound impact on the next generation of Southern writers, including Allen Tate, Stark Young, and Margaret Mitchell.
Table of Contents
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. i-xlii
- Introduction
- pp. vii-xliv
- Book First: Golden Years
- I. "De Hine Foot er a He Frawg"
- pp. 1-13
- II. At the Full of the Moon
- pp. 14-28
- III. The Coming of the Boy
- pp. 29-44
- IV. A House with an Open Door
- pp. 45-55
- V. The School for Gentlemen
- pp. 56-71
- VI. CoIlege Days
- pp. 72-90
- Book Second: Young Blood
- I. The Major's Christmas
- pp. 93-113
- II. Betty dreams by the Fire
- pp. 114-121
- III. Dan and Betty
- pp. 122-134
- IV. Love in a Maze
- pp. 135-149
- V. The Major loses his Temper
- pp. 150-161
- VI. The Meeting in the Turnpike
- pp. 162-173
- VII. If this be Love
- pp. 174-189
- VIII. Betty's Unbelief
- pp. 190-202
- IX. The Montjoy Blood
- pp. 203-218
- X. The Road at Midnight
- pp. 219-228
- XI. At Merry Oaks Tavern
- pp. 229-242
- XII. The Night of Fear
- pp. 243-252
- XIII. Crabbed Age and Callow Youth
- pp. 253-268
- XIV. The Hush before the Storm
- pp. 269-280
- Book Third: The School of War
- I. How Merry Gentlemen went to War
- pp. 283-293
- II. The Day's March
- pp. 294-304
- III. The Reign of the Brute
- pp. 305-315
- IV. After the Battle
- pp. 316-326
- V. The Woman's Part
- pp. 327-337
- VI. On the Road to Romney
- pp. 338-348
- VII. "I wait my Time"
- pp. 349-356
- VIII. The Altar of the War God
- pp. 357-367
- IX. The Montjoy Blood again
- pp. 368-378
- Book Fourth: The Return of the Vanquished
- I. The Ragged Army
- pp. 381-391
- II. A Straggler from the Ranks
- pp. 392-404
- III. The Cabin in the Woods
- pp. 405-417
- IV. In the Silence of the Guns
- pp. 418-428
- V. "The Place Thereof"
- pp. 429-436
- VI. The Peaceful Side of War
- pp. 437-449
- VII. The Silent Battle
- pp. 450-461
- VIII. The Last Stand
- pp. 462-473
- IX. In the Hour of Defeat
- pp. 474-487
- X. On the March again
- pp. 488-498
- XI. The Return
- pp. 499-513
Additional Information
Copyright
2000