This Distracted and Anarchical People : : New Answers for Old Questions about the Civil War–Era North / / ed. by Andrew L. Slap.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
• MitwirkendeR: Bennett, Michael J.,; Gannon, Barbara A.,; Holt, Michael F.,; Holzer, Harold,; Isham, Matthew,; Keller, Christian B.,; Orr, Timothy J.,; Sandow, Robert M.,; Slap, Andrew L.,; Smith, Michael Thomas,; Warshauer, Matthew,; White, Jonathan W.,; Younger, Karen Fisher,
• HerausgeberIn: Slap, Andrew L.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Fordham University Press, , [2022]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: The North's Civil War
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (296 p.)

While most of the fighting took place in the South, the Civil War profoundly affected the North. As farm boys became soldiers and marched off to battle, social, economic, and political changes transformed northern society. In the generations following the conflict, historians tried to understand and explain the North’s Civil War experience. Many historical explanations became taken for granted, such as that the Union Army was ideologically Republican, northern Democrats were disloyal, and German Americans were lousy soldiers. Now in this eye-opening collection of eleven stimulating essays, new and important information is unearthed that solidly challenges the old historical arguments. The essays in This Distracted and Anarchical People range widely throughout the history of the Civil War North, using new methods and sources to reexamine old theories and discover new aspects of the nation’s greatest conflict. Many of these issues are just as important today as they were a century and a half ago. What were the extent and limits of wartime dissent in the North? How could a president most effectively present himself to the public? Can the savagery of war ever be tamed? How did African Americans create and maintain their families? This Distracted and Anarchical People highlights the newest scholarship on a diverse array of topics, bringing fresh insight to bear on some of the most important topics in history today—such as the democratic press in the antebellum North, peace movements, the Union Army and the elections of 1864, Liberia and the U.S. Civil War, and African American veterans and marriage practices after Emancipation.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: New Answers for Old Questions about the Civil War–Era North -- “A Press Th at Speaks Its Opinions Frankly and Openly and Fearlessly”: The Contentious Relationship between the Democratic Press and the Party in the Antebellum North -- Abraham Lincoln, Manhood, and Nineteenth-Century American Political Culture -- Damnable Treason or Party Organs? Democratic Secret Societies in Pennsylvania -- Copperheads in Connecticut: A Peace Movement Th at Imperiled the Union -- “All Manner of Schemes and Rascalities”: Th e Politics of Promotion in the Union Army -- “For My Part I Dont Care Who Is Elected President”: Th e Union Army and the Elections of 1864 -- New Perspectives in Civil War Ethnic History and Their Implications for Twenty-First-Century Scholarship -- The Black Flag and Confederate Soldiers: Total War from the Bottom Up? -- Liberia and the U.S. Civil War -- “No Regular Marriage”: African American Veterans and Marriage Practices aft er Emancipation -- “She Is a Member of the 23rd”: Lucy Nichols and the Community of the Civil War Regiment -- Afterword. On Mark Neely: An Appreciation -- Notes -- List of Contributors -- Index