Search results for ""author elizabeth r. varon""

Loyal Americans marched off to war in 1861 not to conquer the South but to liberate it. In Armies of Deliverance, Elizabeth Varon offers both a sweeping narrative of the Civil War and a bold new interpretation of Union and Confederate war aims. Lincoln's Union coalition sought to deliver the South from slaveholder tyranny and deliver to it the blessings of modern civilization. Over the course of the war, supporters of black freedom built the case that slavery was the obstacle to national reunion and that emancipation would secure military victory and benefit Northern and Southern whites alike. To sustain their morale, Northerners played up evidence of white Southern Unionism, of antislavery progress in the slaveholding border states, and of disaffection among Confederates. But the Union's emphasis on Southern deliverance served, ironically, not only to galvanize loyal Amer icans but also to galvanize disloyal ones. Confederates, fighting to establish an independent slaveholding republic, scorned the Northern promise of liberation and argued that the emancipation of blacks was synonymous with the subjugation of the white South. Interweaving military strategy, political decision-making, popular culture, and private reflections, Varon shows that contests over war aims took place at every level of society within the Union and Confederacy. Everyday acts on the ground--scenes of slave flight, of relief efforts to alleviate suffering, of protests against the draft, of armies plundering civilian homes, of civilian defiance of military occupation, of violence between neighbors, of communities mourning the fallen--reverberated at the highest levels of governance. In this book, major battles receive extensive treatment, providing windows into how soldiers and civilians alike coped with physical and emotional toll of the war, as it escalated into a massive humanitarian crisis. Although the Union's politics of deliverance helped to bring military victory, such appeals ultimately failed to convince Confederates to accept peace on the victor's terms.

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Edited by Gary Gallagher and Elizabeth Varon, two of the most prominent nineteenth-century American historians in the nation, New Perspectives on the Union War provides a more nuanced understanding of what “Union” meant in the Civil War North by exploring how various groups of northerners conceived of the term. The essays in this volume demonstrate that while there was a broad consensus that the war was fought, or should be fought, for the cause of Union, there was bitter disagreement over how to define that cause—debate not only between political camps but also within them. The chapters touch on economics, politics, culture, military affairs, ethnicity, and questions relating to just war. Contributors: Michael T. Caires, Frank Cirillo, D.H. Dilbeck, Jack Furniss, Jesse George-Nichol, William B. Kurtz, Peter C. Luebke, and Tamika Nunley

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Politicians and opinion leaders on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line struggled to formulate coherent responses to the secession of the deep South states. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861 triggered civil war and the loss of four upper South states from the Union. The essays by three senior historians in "Secession Winter" explore the robust debates that preceded these events. For five months in the winter of 1860-1861, Americans did not know for certain that civil war was upon them. Some hoped for a compromise; others wanted a fight. Many struggled to understand what was happening to their country. Robert J. Cook, William L. Barney, and Elizabeth R. Varon take approaches to this period that combine political, economic, and social-cultural lines of analysis. Rather than focus on whether civil war was inevitable, they look at the political process of secession and find multiple internal divisions-political parties, whites and nonwhites, elites and masses, men and women. Even individual northerners and southerners suffered inner conflicts. The authors include the voices of Unionists and Whig party moderates who had much to lose and upcountry folk who owned no slaves and did not particularly like those who did. Barney contends that white southerners were driven to secede by anxiety and guilt over slavery. Varon takes a new look at Robert E. Lee's decision to join the Confederacy. Cook argues that both northern and southern politicians claimed the rightness of their cause by constructing selective narratives of historical grievances. "Secession Winter" explores the fact of contingency and reminds readers and students that nothing was foreordained.

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Edited by Gary Gallagher and Elizabeth Varon, two of the most prominent nineteenth-century American historians in the nation, New Perspectives on the Union War provides a more nuanced understanding of what “Union” meant in the Civil War North by exploring how various groups of northerners conceived of the term. The essays in this volume demonstrate that while there was a broad consensus that the war was fought, or should be fought, for the cause of Union, there was bitter disagreement over how to define that cause—debate not only between political camps but also within them. The chapters touch on economics, politics, culture, military affairs, ethnicity, and questions relating to just war. Contributors: Michael T. Caires, Frank Cirillo, D.H. Dilbeck, Jack Furniss, Jesse George-Nichol, William B. Kurtz, Peter C. Luebke, and Tamika Nunley

Read more less

Politicians and opinion leaders on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line struggled to formulate coherent responses to the secession of the deep South states. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861 triggered civil war and the loss of four upper South states from the Union. The essays by three senior historians in "Secession Winter" explore the robust debates that preceded these events. For five months in the winter of 1860-1861, Americans did not know for certain that civil war was upon them. Some hoped for a compromise; others wanted a fight. Many struggled to understand what was happening to their country. Robert J. Cook, William L. Barney, and Elizabeth R. Varon take approaches to this period that combine political, economic, and social-cultural lines of analysis. Rather than focus on whether civil war was inevitable, they look at the political process of secession and find multiple internal divisions-political parties, whites and nonwhites, elites and masses, men and women. Even individual northerners and southerners suffered inner conflicts. The authors include the voices of Unionists and Whig party moderates who had much to lose and upcountry folk who owned no slaves and did not particularly like those who did. Barney contends that white southerners were driven to secede by anxiety and guilt over slavery. Varon takes a new look at Robert E. Lee's decision to join the Confederacy. Cook argues that both northern and southern politicians claimed the rightness of their cause by constructing selective narratives of historical grievances. "Secession Winter" explores the fact of contingency and reminds readers and students that nothing was foreordained.

Read more less