Editor’s Overview

Our first issue of 2021 explores both the anticipation of war as well as its ramifications and how the Civil War era affected the lives of ordinary people. Remembered as an underdefended outpost that surrendered after a bloodless bombardment, Fort Sumter figures prominently in narratives of naive Americans charging into the Civil War’s unimagined carnage. To the people living under its guns in the winter of 1860–61, however, as Michael E. Woods showcases, the fortress inspired intense short-and long-term apprehension. Analysis of the public and private writings of white Charlestonians reveals widespread dread that a costly infantry assault on Sumter would trigger an exhausting, sanguinary war. Yet these expectations failed to nurture a powerful peace movement, because they carried divergent political meanings among residents divided by allegiance, nativity, and temperament. White Charlestonians did not rush blindly over the precipice, but anticipations of a calamitous battle yielded contradictory responses and, ironically, made war more likely.

Edward Valentin Jr. focuses on the interdependent relationships between federal officials and freedpeople in Texas during Reconstruction. Relying primarily on records from the Freedmen’s Bureau, historical newspapers, and archival records from the Texas State Library and Archives, he argues that black Texans assumed informal roles as intelligence agents for the federal government and provided information that helped bureau agents and other officials understand and navigate unfamiliar spaces during the US Army’s occupation of Texas. Information networks between federal officials and freedpeople helped extend the reach of the federal government and contributed to some of the occupation’s intermittent successes in securing the rights of freedpeople.

Reviews in this edition of Civil War History highlight recent publications on an array of topics from the experiences of veterans and women, views of the Civil War and Reconstruction abroad, the politics of nationalism in the Civil War North, and the representations of the Civil War in modern film. Readers should note the ways Civil War scholarship is continually evolving, as historians tackle complex issues of identity, nationalism, transnationalism, and memory, and the impact of these studies on our understanding of the war, the development of the nation in the twentieth century, and the ways public memory has shaped our national consciousness.

COVID-19 has greatly affected our ability to foster an effective book review process. We anticipate that the number of reviews that appear within our pages will gradually increase as shuttered mailrooms reopen and presses navigate through uncertain budget times.