Race and Radicalism in the Union Army Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Race and Radicalism in the Union Army? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Race and Radicalism in the Union Army. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Race and Radicalism in the Union Army ReviewOne of the year's most important books in its related subject fields of civil rights history, history of the Civil War, Labor History, Native American Studies, African-American Studies, and slavery, to mention only a few. Prof. Lause tells a good story and in this case he shines an investigative and scholarly light on a virtually unknown chapter of Civil War history that saw the first Native American, African-American, and Caucasian troops fighting side-by-side in the Civil War. "Race & Radicalism in the Union Army" recalls a little-known Union Army unit comprised of white disciples of John Brown, runaway black slaves and displaced American Indians in what later became Oklahoma near the war's front in the summer of 1863. Fighting in the Battle of Honey Springs, the Union force was outmanned 2-to-1 and still sent the Confederates retreating back to Texas in "the most significant Civil War battle fought in the Indian Territory." Lause places his subject in the context of the social and political movements of his time, revealing the warp and weft of democratic and agrarian reformers who were frequently both the propagandists and shock-troops of the War Between the States. Well-written, deeply researched and cited, "Race and Radicalism" has a useful index and will excite any scholar, student or enthusiast interested in the history within its compass.Race and Radicalism in the Union Army OverviewIn this compelling portrait of interracial activism, Mark A. Lause documents the efforts of radical followers of John Brown to construct a triracial portion of the Federal Army of the Frontier. Mobilized and inspired by the idea of a Union that would benefit all, black, Indian, and white soldiers fought side by side, achieving remarkable successes in the field. Against a backdrop of idealism, racism, greed, and the agonies and deprivations of combat, Lause examines links between radicalism and reform, on the one hand, and racialized interactions among blacks, Indians, and whites, on the other.

Lause examines how this multiracial vision of American society developed on the Western frontier. Focusing on the men and women who supported Brown in territorial Kansas, Lause examines the impact of abolitionist sentiment on relations with Indians and the crucial role of nonwhites in the conflict. Through this experience, Indians, blacks, and whites began to see their destinies as interdependent, and Lause discusses the radicalizing impact of this triracial Unionism upon the military course of the war in the upper Trans-Mississippi.

The aftermath of the Civil War destroyed much of the memory of the war in the West, particularly in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The opportunity for an interracial society was quashed by the government's willingness to redefine the lucrative field of Indian exploitation for military and civilian officials and contractors.

Assessing the social interrelations, ramifications, and military impact of nonwhites in the Union forces, Race and Radicalism in the Union Army explores the extent of interracial thought and activity among Americans in this period and greatly expands the historical narrative on the Civil War in the West.


Want to learn more information about Race and Radicalism in the Union Army?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans ReviewThough the recent attention of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry- largely due to the success of the movie "Glory"- has garnered some awareness of blacks in the American Civil War, little is still known about these magnificent men who donned the blue uniforms. Blacks played an integral role in the preservation of the Union and deserve the same attention in regards to the respect shown to Civil War veterans.
Information on Civil War veterans remains rather sketchy in places with one of those pertaining to African American veterans. Until Donald Shaffer's study, very little was known on the pension availability to black soldiers. Although not surprising, Shaffer's accounts of racism and prejudice further emphasize the general reaction to African Americans. Thousands of blacks died in the war, but they still were not given the full support of white veteran groups or even the general public. After assisting the unification of this country, blacks continued to climb uphill in regards to social rights.
Lastly, it was eye-opening to see how difficult our government made it for black veterans to get a pension. The pension process was long, tiresome, and difficult for white Union veterans, nevertheless blacks had it worse. Shaffer's book will be a key addition to any Civil War library and may be a standard for a portrait on black veterans in the postwar period.
After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans OverviewThe heroics of black Union soldiers in the Civil War have been justly celebrated, but their postwar lives largely neglected. Donald Shaffer's illuminating study shines a bright light on this previously obscure part of African American history, revealing for the first time black veterans' valiant but often frustrating efforts to secure true autonomy and equality as civilians.After the Glory shows how black veterans' experiences as soldiers provided them for the first time with a sense of manliness that shaped not only their own lives but also their contributions to the African American community. Shaffer makes clear, however, that their postwar pursuit of citizenship and a dignified manhood was never very easy for black veterans, their triumphs frequently neither complete nor lasting.Shaffer chronicles the postwar transition of black veterans from the Union army, as well as their subsequent life patterns, political involvement, family and marital life, experiences with social welfare, comradeship with other veterans, and memories of the war itself. He draws on such sources as Civil War pension records to fashion a collective biography--a social history of both ordinary and notable lives--resurrecting the words and memories of many black veterans to provide an intimate view of their lives and struggles.Like other African Americans from many walks of life, black veterans fought fiercely against disenfranchisement and Jim Crow and were better equipped to do so than most other African Americans. They carried a sense of pride instilled by their military service that made them better prepared to confront racism and discrimination and more respected in their own communities. As Shaffer reveals, they also had nearly equal access to military pensions, financial resources available to few other blacks, and even found acceptance among white Union veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic fraternity.After the Glory is not merely another tale of black struggles in a racist America; it is the story of how a select group of African Americans led a quest for manhood--and often found it within themselves when no one else would give it to them.This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Want to learn more information about After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory, and a Mummy (Culture America) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory, and a Mummy (Culture America)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory, and a Mummy (Culture America). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory, and a Mummy (Culture America) ReviewI bought this book because of its intriguing cover and title and because I have a fascination, like a lot of readers, with John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin. C. Wyatt Evans' work started out a lot different than the fun, mass audience-oriented book I expected. It reads like the over-analytical, pedantic works my professors forced me to read in grad school. Evans analyzes the long-running myth (both regional and national) that Booth was not fatally shot in a barn by Sergeant Boston Corbett's nervous trigger finger as government authorities claimed but had escaped and lived out his life in various ways depending on the storyteller. The suicide death of painter and drifter David George in 1903 in Enid, Oklahoma propelled the myth. George supposedly claimed he was Booth and his embalmed remains were put on display at various carnivals and exhibits for years. Evans' introduction is extremely pedantic to the point that I had to read very carefully and slowly (and sometimes several times) to follow along. A sample sentence: "Vernacular, counter, marginal, and associated terms serve as keywords in a cultural critical lexicon that employs them in a positive sense to connote the struggle of marginalized groups to preserve their identities in the face of the dominant group's rendition of the past" (p. 15). Much of the introduction reads this way and if it continued as such, I may have given up. Fortunately, Evans drops a lot of the intellectual buzz words and the rest of the book reads more smoothly. The following briefly describes the content per chapter:
Chapter 1 takes a look at the David George story; why he was thought by some to be Booth and how his corpse ended up an attraction. In addition, Evans considers the history of Enid, OK including its famous land "runs." Chapter 2 explores the history of mummy exhibition in the United States and how the "Booth" mummy fits, for example, "Booth" represented the popular (curiosity of the notorious and horrific) and traditional (celebrated dignity) models of mummy displays. (p. 55). In chapter 3, Evans explains the northern origins of the Booth legend with a history of the assassination and press coverage. Chapter 4 shifts to the south and how many southerners regarded the assassination (relief, feigned mourning) and the legend of Booth's escape (a symbol of "white southern unreconstructedness").
Finis Langdon Bates' 1907 book Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth is analyzed in chapter 5. Bates' attempt to document Booth's escape implicated VP Andrew Johnson but was done in a way to appease both North and South ("Booth" expressing regret for his deed). In chapter 6, the legend becomes a national phenomenon. The legend represented pre-modern views which clashed with the current times. He considers Lincoln's transition to national icon (p. 156), as well as Otto Eisenschiml and Izola Forrester's (who claimed to be Booth's granddaughter) contribution to the legend. Clarence True Wilson's historical and religious interpretation of the legend is examined in chapter 7. Wilson, a classic minister of reform who worshipped Lincoln, saw Booth's survival and sad existence as moral retribution for his act. Chapter 8 deals with the legend in contemporary America with the recent work Dark Union (2003) and 1977's book and film The Lincoln Conspiracy. In his conclusion, Evans states that "the legend's great lesson to the present is how subgroups in American culture appropriate deeply symbolic events for harmful purposes" (p. 218).
As a history of the myth of Booth's escape, Evans' book is thorough, insightful and extremely well researched. I think he over-analyzes the legend, however. Sure, many people through history have considered the possibility of Booth's escape and designated meaning to it. It is a curiosity and, back in the day, a political incendiary. A famous actor killing and president during a bloody war between the states with suspicious government reaction, how can this not make for intrigue and conspiracy theories? Evans makes a lot out of this legend to put forth American cultural meaning, but it seems to me that the people most obsessed with the issue are the ones hoping to profit from it either through books or by exhibiting a mummy claimed to be Booth. It is an interesting story, of course, without the analytical stuff. I'm just not convinced it is much more than an intriguing footnote to history.The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory, and a Mummy (Culture America) OverviewA deformed thumb, a neck scar from a stage accident, and a broken left leg, the result of a dramatic leap. These were the telltale markings that for decades identified a sideshow attraction as the supposed body of John Wilkes Booth. They persuaded onlookers that Lincoln's assassin was not killed in 1865 but survived the assault on Garrett's barn to live on as a fugitive for thirty years afterwards. As Wyatt Evans shows, some popular stories, no matter how weird and improbable, simply refuse to die. Evans recounts how a mummified corpse came to embody the romantic image of the assassin and the legend of his survival. He traces the legend's development in the weeks following the assassination to the appearance of the "Booth Mummy," the remains of an Oklahoma drifter embalmed in 1903 and displayed in carnival sideshows throughout the West. He assesses the political and ideological motivations in both Southern and Northern cultures that made proliferation of the legend possible as well as profitable. He concludes by examining the legend's persistence in present-day America, the mummy's ironic fate, and the recent efforts to exhume Booth's real remains.Weaving a "vernacular intellectual history," Evans shows how the legend emerged from a tangle of cultural and historical events including white Americans' quest for a suitable racial pre-history, collective memories of the Civil War, and even incipient suspicions of conspiracy, since belief in Booth's escape automatically implied a government cover-up of Booth's capture and death. More than a sop to Confederate diehards for whom Booth's escape symbolized Southern vindication, the legend exemplified Americans' inability and unwillingness to enact closure over the tragedy of Lincoln's death.The Legend of John Wilkes Booth is a compelling story of how collective memories and popular histories collide with, clash, and sometimes overcome mainstream accounts of the past. It offers an alternate venue for studying the workings of Civil War memory in American culture and demonstrates how (and why) culture produced at the grassroots level can challenge the official version of events. Through his meticulous account, Evans sheds new light on our complex attitudes toward heroes and villains, our need to mythologize tragedies, and our unwillingness to let go of myths, however absurd.This book is part of the CultureAmerica series.

Want to learn more information about The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory, and a Mummy (Culture America)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Civil War America) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Civil War America)? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Civil War America). Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Civil War America) ReviewThe author takes on a difficult project -- that in telling the story of the Arkansas/Missouri conflict in the later part of 1862 culminating in the Battle of Prairie Grove. The difficulty stems from the paucity of writings and sources on the Confederate side, but the author does a masterful job in recreating what most likely took place.
For those readers unfamiliar with the Civil War in Missouri and Arkansas (other than along the Mississippi River), the initial campaign was by the Union General Nathaniel Lyon that ended disastrously at Wilson's Creek on August 10, 1861 (skipping over the actions by Missouri home guards and militia). The Federals regrouped and General Curtis led another expedition into Southwest Missouri and Northwestern Arkansas, defeating the Confederates at Pea Ridge on March 8, 1862. The Confederates then dispersed, with Van Dorn taking the bulk of the troops to Mississippi. At this point, the fortunes of the Confederates were at a very low ebb in the West, Missouri was lost, and the entire state of Arkansas was in danger of being occupied by Federal troops. That is where this book takes up its narrative.
General Hindman was sent to Little Rock to form an army, drive the Federals from Arkansas, and lead a campaign into Missouri. Unfortunately, Hindman was only one man, and he was not given any troops, supplies and support. Nonetheless, he re-energized the Confederates in Arkansas (many of those in Northern Arkansas were Unionists), and rapidly built an army out of almost nothing to hold an East-West line along the Arkansas River. The author puts Hindman in a rather favorable light, but is brutally honest with Hindman's superior, General Holmes. Hindman was faced with almost insurmountable difficulties, but managed to place a force in the field on the northern edge of the Boston Mountains to confront the Federals who could move south from Springfield, Missouri.
The author then presents the Union personnel rather thoroughly, introducing the readers to Generals Curtis, Schofield, Blunt, Totten and Herron. The Union "Frontier Army" had difficulties of its own, most notably in operating so far away from its supply bases in Missouri and the terrain difficulties presented by Northwestern Arkansas.
After several skirmishes and endless marching back and forth, Blunt took up a rather isolated position at Cane Hill, Arkansas, where Hindman determined that Blunt's Division invited a surprise attack. Accordingly, Hindman crossed the Boston Mountains, and prepared to attack Blunt when he received word that Herron's Division was rapidly moving south from Fayetteville to rescue Blunt. Hindman then changed his plan and decided to move due north to attack Herron along his route of march, then turn southwest and destroy Blunt. The point where he debouched to intercept Herron was at Prairie Grove.
The actually battle on December 7, 1862 was mishandled on both sides, and after suffering heavy casualties neither side was able to gain an advantage. However, the Confederates were nearly out of ammunition and extremely short of supplies, so Hindman had no choice but to withdraw back across the Boston Mountains to the Arkansas River. The battle therefore became a strategic Federal victory. Hindman eventually returned to Little Rock and was transferred to Bragg's Army, and the Federals eventually captured Little Rock. This ends the book's narrative, although Sterling Price later led another expedition into Missouri that ended in failure, and the Confederates were able to repulse Union General Steele in his attempt to move south from Little Rock and attack Shreveport, Louisiana in 1864. Nonetheless, Prairie Grove turned out to be the decisive battle that cost the Confederacy Missouri and Northern and Western Arkansas.
The author does a masterful job in depicting the battle and its unit actions, regiment by regiment, and artillery battery by battery. There was a great deal of heroism on both sides, and in many respects the battle was the classic and representative Civil War battle. The troops overcame great adversity to fight effectively, and although the Confederates withdrew, both sides felt they had won the battle as a tactical contest.
This is a scholarly work that is necessarily light on Confederate accounts since so few of the Confederate participants wrote reports or accounts (that survived) dealing with the campaign and battle. The author does the best he can to present the actions from both sides, and fully deserves his five stars. Approximately 8,000 Federal troops took part and they suffered sixteen percent casualties, the Confederates had about 11,500 men of which thirteen percent became casualties. The Federals were fairly well supplied, but the Confederates fought this campaign on a shoestring with not enough rifles to equip the entire army, no tents and few blankets to face the cold weather, and with many of the soldiers barefoot, hatless, and poorly dressed. Food was extremely scarce, and many of the Confederate soldiers fought the battle without having eaten anything for the previous two days.
In many respects this is a specialist's book as the Civil War west of the Mississippi generally receives little attention. The case can be made that had the Federals done nothing but defend Missouri, the outcome of the war would have been the same. But to the men of Missouri and Arkansas on both sides, and those of Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas and the Indian Home Guards, this fight was vicious and personal. Union artillery was vastly superior to that of the Confederates, and that arm eventually saved the Union army from a serious defeat.
I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in the Civil War. It offers an excellent perspective of war in the West as contrasted to the large scale actions in the other theaters.Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Civil War America) OverviewOn Sunday, December 7, 1862, two armies collided at an obscure Arkansas hamlet named Prairie Grove in a desperate battle that effectively ended Confederate offensive operations west of the Mississippi River. In Fields of Blood, historian William L. Shea offers a gripping narrative of the events surrounding Prairie Grove, one of the great unsung battles of the Civil War.Shea provides a colorful account of a grueling campaign that lasted five months and covered hundreds of miles of rugged Ozark terrain. In a fascinating analysis of the personal, geographical, and strategic elements that led to the fateful clash in northwest Arkansas, he describes a campaign notable for rapid marching, bold movements, hard fighting, and the most remarkable raid of the Civil War. After months of intricate maneuvering punctuated by five battles in three states, armies led by Thomas C. Hindman and James G. Blunt met one last time at Prairie Grove. The costly daylong struggle was a tactical draw but a key strategic victory for the Union, as the Confederates never again seriously attempted to recover Missouri or threaten Kansas. Historians have long ignored the complex campaign that ended in such spectacular fashion at Prairie Grove, but it is at last brought to life in these pages.

Want to learn more information about Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Civil War America)?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...