Editor’s Note

For a while now, historians interested in learning about the lives of ordinary people have employed more than the demographics and regression analysis that typified the early method of social history. Today, historians often turn to cultural analysis to search for the mentalities of their subjects. Uncovering popular opinion among nineteenth-century Americans remains a challenging task even during a conflict that featured a great outpouring of literary sources through diaries, journals, and letters between soldiers and their families. As rich as they are, these sources still privilege the middle and upper classes. Examining various aspects of culture has given historians additional ways to suggest the values of a broader range of people.

The three research articles in this month’s issue feature different ways to bring cultural discussion to the forefront. Jon Grinspan leads off with an engaging exploration of popular comedy during the Civil War. He adds a new dimension to how Americans coped with the grisly casualties and the difficult situations that they faced. Prior works tend to favor casting Americans as steeped in sentimentalism, which is true; however, they did not avoid humor as Grinspan reveals that “no subject was too solemn for America’s comedians.” Next, Joan Cashin exposes a side to soldier behavior that most historians of the Civil War have missed—trophy hunting. Soldiers on both sides pillaged from civilians and enemy combatants, behavior which has gone unnoticed in studies of the destructive nature of the war. Under the banner of trophy hunting, soldiers plundered everything from expensive women’s clothing to body parts, and many things in between. Finally, Anne E. Marshall exposes how theater became enmeshed in politics in early twentieth century Kentucky. The United Daughters of the Confederacy opposed a stage production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin because of the harsh portrayal of antebellum slavery, and African Americans challenged staging The Clansman. In addition to other treasures, the article demonstrates how historians of the Civil War era are stretching the chronological boundaries of the sectional crisis to include the legacies of slavery.

Two other articles round out the issue. Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh takes to task the use of “total war” as a definition of Union policy against the South, but he does so in a novel way that situates the war within a broader global and temporal context. The result exposes the American exceptionalism that undergirds the discussion of what makes a total war. Finally, Barbara Franco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, offers insight into the opportunity we all now face—the teaching and learning moment offered by the sesquicentennial. Commemorations often have unintended consequences, she reminds us, while pointing out how our memory of the war “has progressed through stages from mourning to reconciliation to patriotism and now debate.”

It is clear, however, that while old thoughts about the war still exist— the proverbial Lost Cause image—the nation is in a much different place than it was in the 1960s. Slavery, emancipation, other political issues, and social concerns have established themselves as topics of interest alongside the military history of the war. Both the articles presented here and the commentary on commemorations provide an opportunity to think more deeply and in more creative ways about the nature of the war and its impact.