The American Civil War: Literary Sources and Documents (review)

The American Civil War: Literary Sources and Documents.Edited by Jon Roper and Duncan Campbell. (The Banks, East Sussex, U.K.: Helm Information, 2001. 3 vols.: Pp. 672; 608; 624. Illus. Cloth, $395.00.)

This sleek and sturdy three-volume set is one of the most extensive compilations of important primary source material available on the Civil War era. The term "literary" is misleading, since only a few examples of fiction appear. All told, there are 181 selections of documents, letters, speeches, newspaper and magazine articles, and firsthand accounts by major historical figures, participants, and eyewitnesses. Each volume offers a long scholarly introduction by the editors, affording an intriguing British perspective on this tumultuous period of American history and including frequent and effective references to the sources selected by the editors for the text. Otherwise, editing is limited to a brief introduction preceding each selection.

The first volume, devoted to the antebellum background of the Civil War, comprises sections on the Founding Fathers and Early National Period, Nat Turner's Rebellion, sectional struggles over slavery, the secession crisis, and the formation of the Confederacy. Much space, of course, is given to the speeches and writings of Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, John Brown, Jefferson Davis, and other luminaries. The second volume presents sources covering the war itself and reflects a healthy mixture of military, political, and social history. Women such as Mary Chesnut, Belle Boyd, Rose O'Neal Greenhow, and Eliza Frances Andrews are represented. Yet strangely, except for the text of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans disappear from center stage.

The third volume focuses on the collapse of the Confederacy, the vicissitudes of Reconstruction, the Lost Cause, and the legal establishment of Jim Crow. There are also excerpts from fictional works by prominent literary figures such as Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain, as well as poems by Herman Melville and John Vincent Benet. The most welcome feature of this volume is the section titled "Heard Around the World," composed of statements on the war by foreign leaders including John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, John Bright, and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The set features only an author-title index, which is hardly surprising. A comprehensive index would have required enormous effort, and it would have proved only marginally useful.