The Civil War Soldier and the Press

The Civil War Soldier and the Press PDF

Author: Katrina J. Quinn

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-09

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1000878260

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The Civil War Soldier and the Press examines how the press powerfully shaped the nation’s understanding and memory of the common soldier, setting the stage for today’s continuing debates about the Civil War and its legacy. The history of the Civil War is typically one of military strategies, famous generals, and bloody battles, but to Americans of the era, the most important story of the war was the fate of the soldier. In this edited collection, new research in journalism history and archival images provide an interdisciplinary study of citizenship, representation, race and ethnicity, gender, disability, death, and national identity. Together, these chapters follow the story of Civil War soldiers, from enlistment through battle and beyond, as they were represented in hometown and national newspapers of the time. In discussing the same pages that were read by soldiers’ families, friends, and loved ones during America’s greatest conflict, the book provides a window into the experience of historical readers as they grappled with the meaning and cost of patriotism and shared sacrifice. Both scholarly and approachable, this book is an enriching resource for undergraduate and graduate courses in Civil War history, American history, journalism, and mass communication history.

The War for the Common Soldier

The War for the Common Soldier PDF

Author: Peter S. Carmichael

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-11-02

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 1469643103

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How did Civil War soldiers endure the brutal and unpredictable existence of army life during the conflict? This question is at the heart of Peter S. Carmichael's sweeping new study of men at war. Based on close examination of the letters and records left behind by individual soldiers from both the North and the South, Carmichael explores the totality of the Civil War experience--the marching, the fighting, the boredom, the idealism, the exhaustion, the punishments, and the frustrations of being away from families who often faced their own dire circumstances. Carmichael focuses not on what soldiers thought but rather how they thought. In doing so, he reveals how, to the shock of most men, well-established notions of duty or disobedience, morality or immorality, loyalty or disloyalty, and bravery or cowardice were blurred by war. Digging deeply into his soldiers' writing, Carmichael resists the idea that there was "a common soldier" but looks into their own words to find common threads in soldiers' experiences and ways of understanding what was happening around them. In the end, he argues that a pragmatic philosophy of soldiering emerged, guiding members of the rank and file as they struggled to live with the contradictory elements of their violent and volatile world. Soldiering in the Civil War, as Carmichael argues, was never a state of being but a process of becoming.

Faces of the Civil War

Faces of the Civil War PDF

Author: Ronald S Coddington

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1421410397

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Archival images and biographical sketches of Union soldiers tell the stories of their lives during and after the Civil War. Before leaving to fight in the Civil War, many Union and Confederate soldiers posed for a carte de visite, or visiting card, to give to their families, friends, or sweethearts. Invented in 1854 by a French photographer, the carte de visite was a small photographic print roughly the size of a modern trading card. The format arrived in America on the eve of the Civil War, fueling intense demand for the keepsakes. Many cards of Civil War soldiers survive today, but the experiences?and often the names?of the individuals portrayed have been lost to time. A passionate collector of Civil War–era photography, Ron Coddington researched the history behind these anonymous faces in military records, pension files, and other public and personal documents. In Faces of the Civil War, Coddington presents 77 cartes de visite of Union soldiers from his collection and tells the stories of their lives during and after the war. These soldiers came from all walks of life. All were volunteers. Their personal stories reveal a tremendous diversity in their experience of war: many served with distinction, some were captured, some never saw combat while others saw little else. The lives of survivors were even more disparate. While some made successful transitions back to civilian life, others suffered permanent physical and mental disabilities, which too often wrecked their families and careers. In compelling words and haunting pictures, Faces of the Civil War offers a unique perspective on the most dramatic and wrenching period in American history.

Why Confederates Fought

Why Confederates Fought PDF

Author: Aaron Sheehan-Dean

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2009-11-05

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 080788765X

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In the first comprehensive study of the experience of Virginia soldiers and their families in the Civil War, Aaron Sheehan-Dean captures the inner world of the rank-and-file. Utilizing new statistical evidence and first-person narratives, Sheehan-Dean explores how Virginia soldiers--even those who were nonslaveholders--adapted their vision of the war's purpose to remain committed Confederates. Sheehan-Dean challenges earlier arguments that middle- and lower-class southerners gradually withdrew their support for the Confederacy because their class interests were not being met. Instead he argues that Virginia soldiers continued to be motivated by the profound emotional connection between military service and the protection of home and family, even as the war dragged on. The experience of fighting, explains Sheehan-Dean, redefined southern manhood and family relations, established the basis for postwar race and class relations, and transformed the shape of Virginia itself. He concludes that Virginians' experience of the Civil War offers important lessons about the reasons we fight wars and the ways that those reasons can change over time.

Soldier of the Press

Soldier of the Press PDF

Author: Henry T. Gorrell

Publisher: University of Missouri Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0826271790

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"This memoir by United Press war correspondent Henry T. Gorrell provides eyewitness accounts from the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War and the war fronts in Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa during World War II"--Provided by publisher.

A Civil War Soldier of Christ and Country

A Civil War Soldier of Christ and Country PDF

Author: John Rodgers Meigs

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 0252030761

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This collection of letters and documents offers a rare glimpse into a young officer's interesting but short life. Mary A. Giunta's A Civil War Soldier of Christ and Country tells the story of the relationships between the headstrong John Rodgers Meigs and his family and friends; his heartwarming eagerness to please his demanding parents; his West Point experiences that include a meeting with Abraham Lincoln; and his life as a combatant in the Civil War. John Rodgers Meigs was the son of Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, and his official correspondence reveals much about his duties as a military engineer and aide-de-camp to Union generals. The private correspondence between him and his father and mother is especially compelling. Approximately forty of the letters were written in an early version of Pitman shorthand and are here transcribed for the first time. Collectively, they provide an intimate picture of the young Meigs, uncover the concerns of a family with high expectations, and offer a unique look at a devastating war.

Nature's Civil War

Nature's Civil War PDF

Author: Kathryn Shively Meier

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1469610760

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In the Shenandoah Valley and Peninsula Campaigns of 1862, Union and Confederate soldiers faced unfamiliar and harsh environmental conditions--strange terrain, tainted water, swarms of flies and mosquitoes, interminable rain and snow storms, and oppressive

Civil War Soldiers

Civil War Soldiers PDF

Author: Reid Mitchell

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1997-07-01

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0140263330

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The soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were united by a common history, and yet the legacy of this past was ambiguous, upholding both rebellion and union. Union and Confederate men went to war as Americans, convinced they fought an un-American, savage enemy. The war they fought was as emotional and catastrophic as any in history, a violent crucible that forged a new national identity. Civil War Soldiers is a fresh and compelling attempt to fathom the war's significance—then and now—and makes immediate the charged issues and bitter ironies of a nation torn by a conflict over the common ideals of liberty and justice. Drawing on diaries and letters, the focus of this pioneering study is on the men who fought, caught up in a conflict whose causes and consequences seemed as complex and contradictory to the soldiers themselves as they do to us. Reid Mitchell re-creates their experience and discusses the questions one would have most wanted to ask them: Why did you fight? How did you feel about slavery and race? What did you take home from the war? What legacy have you left us? "Fresh insights, startling descriptions, and poignant human detail about the war from the men who fought it."—Chicago Tribune

Ends of War

Ends of War PDF

Author: Caroline E. Janney

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2021-09-13

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1469663384

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The Army of Northern Virginia's chaotic dispersal began even before Lee and Grant met at Appomattox Court House. As the Confederates had pushed west at a relentless pace for nearly a week, thousands of wounded and exhausted men fell out of the ranks. When word spread that Lee planned to surrender, most remaining troops stacked their arms and accepted paroles allowing them to return home, even as they lamented the loss of their country and cause. But others broke south and west, hoping to continue the fight. Fearing a guerrilla war, Grant extended the generous Appomattox terms to every rebel who would surrender himself. Provost marshals fanned out across Virginia and beyond, seeking nearly 18,000 of Lee's men who had yet to surrender. But the shock of Lincoln's assassination led Northern authorities to see threats of new rebellion in every rail depot and harbor where Confederates gathered for transport, even among those already paroled. While Federal troops struggled to keep order and sustain a fragile peace, their newly surrendered adversaries seethed with anger and confusion at the sight of Union troops occupying their towns and former slaves celebrating freedom. In this dramatic new history of the weeks and months after Appomattox, Caroline E. Janney reveals that Lee's surrender was less an ending than the start of an interregnum marked by military and political uncertainty, legal and logistical confusion, and continued outbursts of violence. Janney takes readers from the deliberations of government and military authorities to the ground-level experiences of common soldiers. Ultimately, what unfolds is the messy birth narrative of the Lost Cause, laying the groundwork for the defiant resilience of rebellion in the years that followed.

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