America in the antebellum years was a deeply troubled country, divided by partisan gridlock and ideological warfare, angry voices in the streets and the statehouses, furious clashes over race and immigration, and a growing chasm between immense wealth and desperate poverty.
The Civil War that followed brought America to the brink of self-destruction. But it also created a new country from the ruins of the old one--bolder and stronger than ever. No event in the war was more destructive, or more important, than William Sherman's legendary march through Georgia--crippling the heart of the South's economy, freeing thousands of slaves, and marking the beginning of a new era.
This invasion not only quelled the Confederate forces, but transformed America, forcing it to reckon with a century of injustice. Dickey reveals the story of women actively involved in the military campaign and later, in civilian networks. African Americans took active roles as soldiers, builders, and activists. Rich with despair and hope, brutality and compassion, Rising in Flames tells the dramatic story of the Union's invasion of the Confederacy, and how this colossal struggle helped create a new nation from the embers of the Old South.
Автор: Lisa Tendrich Frank Название: The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers During Sherman`s March ISBN: 0807178179 ISBN-13(EAN): 9780807178171 Издательство: Mare Nostrum (Eurospan) Рейтинг: Цена: 29260.00 T Наличие на складе: Есть у поставщика Поставка под заказ. Описание: The Civilian War explores home front encounters between elite Confederate women and Union soldiers during Sherman's March, a campaign that put women at the center of a Union army operation for the first time. Ordered to crush the morale as well as the military infrastructure of the Confederacy, Sherman and his army increasingly targeted wealthy civilians in their progress through Georgia and the Carolinas. To drive home the full extent of northern domination over the South, Sherman's soldiers besieged the female domain-going into bedrooms and parlors, seizing correspondence and personal treasures-with the aim of insulting and humiliating upper-class southern women. These efforts blurred the distinction between home front and warfront, creating confrontations in the domestic sphere as a part of the war itself. Historian Lisa Tendrich Frank argues that ideas about women and their roles in war shaped the expectations of both Union soldiers and Confederate civilians. Sherman recognized that slaveholding Confederate women played a vital part in sustaining the Rebel efforts, and accordingly he treated them as wartime opponents, targeting their markers of respectability and privilege. Although Sherman intended his efforts to demoralize the civilian population, Frank suggests that his strategies frequently had the opposite effect. Confederate women accepted the plunder of food and munitions as an inevitable part of the conflict, but they considered Union invasion of their private spaces an unforgivable and unreasonable transgression. These intrusions strengthened the resolve of many southern women to continue the fight against the Union and its most despised general. Seamlessly merging gender studies and military history, The Civilian War illuminates the distinction between the damage inflicted on the battlefield and the offenses that occurred in the domestic realm during the Civil War. Ultimately, Frank's research demonstrates why many women in the Lower South remained steadfastly committed to the Confederate cause even when their prospects seemed most dim.