Editors’ Overview

This issue of Civil War History explores often-overlooked aspects of religion, culture, and gender. Edward J. Blum’s “‘The First Secessionist Was Satan’: Secession and the Religious Politics of Evil in Civil War America” discovers the ubiquity of the devil in unionist discussions of Confederate secession. In speeches, sermons, private letters, novels, rumors, and the imagery on letter envelopes, northerners depicted Satan as the first secessionist. Equating secession with the devil allowed unionists to avoid demonizing Confederates themselves; this allowed both sides to comfortably evade complicated questions of race and slavery. “Throughout the ups and downs of the war,” Blum concludes, “throughout the political, legal, and social struggles over emancipation, habeas corpus, and election campaigns, the concept that Satan was the first secessionist endured.” James J. Broomall’s “‘We Are a Band of Brothers’: Manhood and Community in Confederate Camps” challenges the notion that Confederate soldiers were unable to form meaningful personal relationships during military service because of the demands of an antebellum honor-based culture. War and the homosocial circumstances of camp life changed these southern white men, allowing many to assume a more “flexible, pliable model of manhood that encouraged mutual dependence between men but also continued elements of antebellum independence.”

This issue features another film roundtable, this time on the award-winning 12 Years a Slave. Our book review section highlights new scholarship on memory studies, medicine, African American soldiers, and the civilian wartime experience.