Between 1915 and 1922, surviving Tennessee Civil War veterans were asked to respond to a questionaire asking about their Civil War experiences, family life, pre-war lifestyle etc. Their responses have been transcribed exactly as received into these five volumes.

"Unlike many collections of original essays, this one is consistently fresh, coherent, and excellent. It reflects the combined scholarly excitement of ... the cultural history of the Civil War and the social history of Appalachia. As the editors point out in their introduction, this collection revises two false cliches - uniform Unionism in a region filled with cultural savages."

Between 1915 and 1922, surviving Tennessee Civil War veterans were asked to respond to a questionaire asking about their Civil War experiences, family life, pre-war lifestyle etc. Their responses have been transcribed exactly as received into these five volumes.

Based largely on Civil War veterans' own words, this book documents how many of these men survived the extraordinary horrors and hardships of war with surprising resilience and went on to become productive members of their communities in their post-war lives. Nothing transforms "dry, boring history" into fascinating and engaging stories like learning about long-ago events through the words of those who lived them. What was it like to witness—and participate in—the horrors of a war that lasted four years and claimed over half a million lives, and then emerge as a survivor into a drastically changed world? Veterans North and South: The Transition from Soldier to Civilian after the American Civil War takes readers back to this unimaginable time through the words of Civil War soldiers who fought on both sides, illuminating their profound, life-changing experiences during the war and in the postbellum period. The book covers the period from the surrender of the armies of the Confederacy to the return of the veterans to their homes. It follows them through their readjustment to civilian life and to family life while addressing their ability—and in some cases, inability—to become productive members of society. By surveying Civil War veterans' individual stories, readers will gain an in-depth understanding of these soldiers' sacrifices and comprehend how these discrete experiences coalesced to form America's memory of this war as a nation.

The second volume of Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times contains sixteen essays on Tennessee women in the forefront of the political, economic, and cultural history of the state and assesses the national and sometimes international scope of their influence. The essays examine women's lives in the broad sweep of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history in Tennessee and reenvision the state's past by placing them at the center of the historical stage and examining their experiences in relation to significant events. Together, volumes 1 and 2 cover women's activities from the early 1700s to the late 1900s. Volume 2 looks at antebellum issues of gender, race, and class; the impact of the Civil War on women's lives; parades and public celebrations as venues for displaying and challenging gender ideals; female activism on racial and gender issues; the impact of state legislation on marital rights; and the place of women in particular religious organizations. Together these essays reorient our views of women as agents of change in Tennessee history. Contributors: Beverly Greene Bond on African American women and slavery in Tennessee; Zanice Bond on Mildred Bond Roxborough and the NAACP; Frances Wright Breland on women's marital rights after the 1913 Married Women's Property Rights Act; Margaret Caffrey on Lide Meriwether; Gary T. Edwards on antebellum female plainfolk; Sarah Wilkerson Freeman on Tennessee's audacious white feminists, 1825-1910; M. Sharon Herbers on Lilian Wyckoff Johnson's legacy; Laura Mammina on Union soldiers and Confederate women in Middle Tennessee; Ann Youngblood Mulhearn on women, faith, and social justice in Memphis, 1950-1968; Kelli B. Nelson on East Tennessee United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1914-1931; Russell Olwell on the "Secret City" women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during World War II; Mary Ellen Pethel on education and activism in Nashville's African American community, 1870-1940; Cynthia Sadler on Memphis Mardi Gras, Cotton Carnival, and Cotton Makers' Jubilee; Sarah L. Silkey on Ida B. Wells; Antoinette G. van Zelm on women, emancipation, and freedom celebrations; Elton H. Weaver III on Church of God in Christ women in Tennessee, early 1900s-1950s.

Between 1915 and 1922, surviving Tennessee Civil War veterans were asked to respond to a questionaire asking about their Civil War experiences, family life, pre-war lifestyle etc. Their responses have been transcribed exactly as received into these five volumes.

Between 1915 and 1922, surviving Tennessee Civil War veterans were asked to respond to a questionaire asking about their Civil War experiences, family life, pre-war lifestyle etc. Their responses have been transcribed exactly as received into these five volumes.

Bolton (history, U. of Southern Mississippi) illuminates the social complexity surrounding the lives of a group consistently dismissed as rednecks, crackers, and white trash: landless white tenants and laborers in the era of slavery. A short epilogue looks at their lives today. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

During the battle of Gettysburg, as Union troops along Cemetery Ridge rebuffed Pickett's Charge, they were heard to shout, "Give them Fredericksburg!" Their cries reverberated from a clash that, although fought some six months earlier, clearly loomed large in the minds of Civil War soldiers. Fought on December 13, 1862, the battle of Fredericksburg ended in a stunning defeat for the Union. Confederate general Robert E. Lee suffered roughly 5,000 casualties but inflicted more than twice that many losses--nearly 13,000--on his opponent, General Ambrose Burnside. As news of the Union loss traveled north, it spread a wave of public despair that extended all the way to President Lincoln. In the beleaguered Confederacy, the southern victory bolstered flagging hopes, as Lee and his men began to take on an aura of invincibility. George Rable offers a gripping account of the battle of Fredericksburg and places the campaign within its broader political, social, and military context. Blending battlefield and home front history, he not only addresses questions of strategy and tactics but also explores material conditions in camp, the rhythms and disruptions of military life, and the enduring effects of the carnage on survivors--both civilian and military--on both sides.

In Southern Society and Its Transformations, a new set of scholars challenge conventional perceptions of the antebellum South as an economically static region compared to the North. Showing that the pre-Civil War South was much more complex than once thought, the essays in this volume examine the economic lives and social realities of three overlooked but important groups of southerners: the working poor, non-slaveholding whites, and middling property holders such as small planters, professionals, and entrepreneurs. The nine essays that comprise Southern Society and Its Transformations explore new territory in the study of the slave-era South, conveying how modernization took shape across the region and exploring the social processes involved in its economic developments. The book is divided into four parts, each analyzing a different facet of white southern life. The first outlines the legal dimensions of race relations, exploring the effects of lynching and the significance of Georgia’s vagrancy laws. Part II presents the advent of the market economy and its effect on agriculture in the South, including the beginning of frontier capitalism. The third section details the rise of a professional middle class in the slave era and the conflicts provoked. The book’s last section deals with the financial aspects of the transformation in the South, including the credit and debt relationships at play and the presence of corporate entrepreneurship. Between the dawn of the nation and the Civil War, constant change was afoot in the American South. Scholarship has only begun to explore these progressions in the past few decades and has given too little consideration to the economic developments with respect to the working-class experience. These essays show that a new generation of scholars is asking fresh questions about the social aspects of the South’s economic transformation. Southern Society and Its Transformations is a complex look at how whole groups of traditionally ignored white southerners in the slave era embraced modernizing economic ideas and actions while accepting a place in their race-based world. This volume will be of interest to students of Southern and U.S. economic and social history.