Letting ordinary people speak for themselves, this book uses primary documents to highlight daily life among Americans—Union and Confederate, black and white, soldier and civilian—during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Focusing on routines as basic as going to school and cooking and cleaning, Voices of Civil War America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life explores the lives of ordinary Americans during one of the nation's most tumultuous eras. The book emphasizes the ordinary rather than the momentous to help students achieve a true understanding of mid-19th-century American culture and society.
Recognizing that there is no better way to learn history than to allow those who lived it to speak for themselves, the authors utilize primary documents to depict various aspects of daily life, including politics, the military, economics, domestic life, material culture, religion, intellectual life, and leisure. Each of the documents is augmented by an introduction and aftermath, as well as lists of topics to consider and questions to ask.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction: Civil War America and Reconstruction
How to Evaluate Primary Documents
Chronology of Events
DOCUMENTS OF CIVIL WAR AMERICA
Politics
1. Senator Stephen Douglas's Support of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (1854)
2. Reaction to Lincoln's First Inaugural Address in the Staunton (Virginia) Spectator (1861)
3. A "Disgrace to the American People": The Illinois Legislature Denounces the Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
4. A Reaction to the Gettysburg Address in Harper's Weekly (1863)
5. "Election Day … the Most Momentous Since the Days of Washington": Diary Entries by Union Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Lyman (1864)
6. The 14th Constitutional Amendment and the 15th Constitutional Amendment (1868, 1870)
7. Rutherford B. Hayes's Inaugural Address (1877)
Military Life
8. "To Assist … in the Defense of Our Common Country": David Pierson to William H. Pierson (April 22, 1861)
9. Hardtack and Coffee, or the Unwritten Story of Army Life (1887)
10. "Valiantly Did the Heroic Descendants of Africa Move Forward …": Letter from Captain Elias D. Strunke (1863)
11. "I Will Commence Writing You a Letter": Description of Life in Fredericksburg, Virginia (1863)
12. "The Balls Make a Very Loud Singing Noise When They Pass Near You …": An Experience of Battle (1861)
13. "Our Dear Boys—Now as Ever—I Commit Them into Thy Hands": A Confederate Woman Supports the War Effort (1862)
14. "We Now Are in Indian Country …": Life Near a Reservation (1867–1868)
Economics
15. "The Soil Is All the Best Quality …": Results of the Homestead Act (1872)
16. The Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad: An Eyewitness Observance (1869)
17. "The Chinese Must Go": Article in The Illustrated Wasp (1878)
18. "A Farmer's Life": Article in The Atlantic Monthly (1877)
19. "The Old Chisholm Trail": A Cowboy Ballad (1870s)
20. "Regulations to Be Observed by All Persons Employed in the Lewiston Mills" (1867)
Domestic Life
21. "This Morning We Have Heard That [Father] Is Safe and I Can Take up My Journal Again": Diary Entries of Emma LeConte (January–February 1865)
22. "Perhaps a Courtship of Generous Length …": A Columnist's Advice to Couples (1871)
23. A Manual for New Mothers: Domestic Advice from Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869)
24. "She Bore the Yoke and Wore the Name of Wife": In Praise of Domesticity (1872)
25. "Our Household Servants": Article in The Galaxy (September 1872)
Material Life
26. "… The Air of Substantialness": A Plan for Home Ownership (1866)
27. "Home to Thanksgiving": A Currier and Ives Lithograph (1867)
28. Improving Mealtime: Recipes from The National Cook Book (1866)
29. Women's Fashion in an Advertising Lithograph (1869)
30. Consumerism Benefits from the "Dailies": A Newspaper Advertisement for Household Goods (1874)
Religion
31. An Argument for Slave Ownership: Reverend George Armstrong's The Christian Doctrine of Slavery (1857)
32. The Battle between Good and Evil: An African American Spiritual (1872)
33. "… The Heat Was So Intense That It Drove Us Down to the Waters …": An Account of the Chicago Fire (1873)
34. "We Sang 'Rock of Ages' as I Thought I Had Never Heard It Sung Before …": Frances Willard's Crusade against Alcohol, from Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (1889)
35. "Baby Looking Out for Me": From Samuel Irenaeus Prime's Thoughts on the Death of Little Children (1865)
36. "A Buddhist Mission in the United States?": A Satire Highlighting Divisions among Christians (1872)
Intellectual Life
37. Funding Agricultural Colleges: The Morrill Act (1862)
38. "A Physician's Story": Continental Monthly (December 1862)
39. "Knowledge Is Power," Lesson XXII, McGuffey's New Fourth Eclectic Reader: Instructive Lessons for the Young (1866)
40. Ragged Dick: Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks by Horatio Alger Jr. (1868)
41. "Harvest of Death": Photograph by Timothy O'Sullivan (1863)
42. "The Blue and the Gray" by Francis Miles Finch (1867)
Recreation and Leisure
43. "Clubs and Club Life": The Galaxy (1876)
44. Publicity Photo for P. T. Barnum's American Museum (c. mid-1850s–mid-1860s)
45. "The Baseball Glove Comes to Baseball": Albert Spalding (1875)
46. "Christmas, 1871": Manufacturer and Builder (1871)
47. "The Checkered Game of Life": An Advertisement in The Nursery: A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers (1877)
Appendix 1: Biographical Sketches of Important Individuals Mentioned in Text
Appendix 2: Glossary of Terms Mentioned in Text
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Lawrence A. Kreiser, Jr. is associate professor of history at Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, AL.
Ray B. Browne, prior to his death in 2009, was professor emeritus in the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH.
Review :
The focus on the direct experiences of ordinary Americans and the amount of context provided set this book apart from the plethora of works on the Civil War. A great choice for American history collections.
One of the greatest means for achieving an understanding of a historical period long past is to read the unfiltered, unanalyzed words of people who lived through it, and among the 48 documents provided here is an array of letters and journal entries written by people who existed at and around the time of the Civil War. . . . The documents are followed by questions, most of which are substantial, to encourage expanded deliberation; they will make excellent fodder for classroom discussion. . . . a rich volume of fascinating primary documents and worthwhile ancillary material
