Confederates in the Attic: Selected Additional Readings
Chesnut, Mary Boykin Miller. Mary Chesnut's Civil War. Edited by C. Vann Woodward. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.
"The 1982 Pulitzer prize winner in history, Mary Chesnut's Civil War is a heavily footnoted look at the social and political climate in South Carolina from 1861-1865. Because Mrs. Chesnut was the wife of a prominent politician of the day, she had communication with many famous political figures, such as Varina Davis, the wife of Jefferson Davis (the President of the Confederacy.) This book is worth reading cover to cover because of the personal commentary of Mrs. Chesnut about the War between the States, and also her observations on what was being said by others and in the media, nearly on a daily basis. Mr. Woodward's extensive footnotes help the modern day reader to grasp literary references and differences in language made by Mrs. Chesnut, and also aid in the identification of all the personalities she includes in her observations."
Faust, Drew Gilpin. The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
"Part of the achievement of the book is in relating the wartime ideology to that of the Old South. In Faust's view Confederate culture proceeded naturally from antebellum beliefs. . . . [She] concludes that Republicanism and Evangelicalism were weak ideological foundations for the Confederacy. . . . Faust strains at times in insisting on the empowerment of women, blacks, and the plain folk during the war; in the end, she acknowledges that the cultural elite was more effective than others in defining Confederate ideology. The relationship of her study to the Old South is clear, but she does not address its relevance for the postwar New South. The story of dramatic wartime shifts in southern society should, nonetheless, be required reading for historians of the postwar era." -- The Journal of American History
Faust, Drew Gilpin. Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
"Faust's exceedingly readable volume may be considered a fine nonfiction companion to Gone with the Wind and Mary Chesnut's famous diary. It focuses on upper-class southern women, who before the Civil War had made a workable bargain with patriarchy: protection in return for limited spheres of free activity and competence. The war threw this bargain not merely into the melting pot but into the furnace, and such women were simultaneously faced with a broken contract, which they resented, and a series of challenges that many of them met as interestingly as Margaret Mitchell's heroine. Subsequently, the same women became the backbone of the effort to reimpose the prewar hierarchy of race and class. In addition to its rare readability, Faust's effort is full of insights and even wit. Altogether, it is one of the most admirable recent volumes of American social history." -- Booklist
Foster, Gaines M. Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
"Through an examination of memoirs, personal papers, and postwar Confederate rituals such as memorial day observances, monument unveilings, and veterans' reunions, Ghosts of the Confederacy probes into how white southerners adjusted to and interpreted their defeat and explores the cultural implications of a central event in American history. Foster argues that, contrary to southern folklore, southerners actually accepted their loss, rapidly embraced both reunion and a New South, and helped to foster sectional reconciliation and an emerging social order." -- Oxford University Press website
Gurganus, Alan. The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. New York: Knopf, 1989.
In this fictional account, "Lucy Marsden, is narrowing in on her 100th birthday. She had been married to her husband William More Marsden since she was fifteen. But Willie, a veteran of the Civil War, never recovered from his youthful foray into battle, and more importantly, the loss of his closest friend. And the stories Lucy has to tell of the war, Willie, her life with him, and the tales she heard from his one-time slave Castalia, call to mind a time and a place, a history and a legacy that is not soon forgotten, and a call to justice that never should be." -- The New York Times Book Review
Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. Cambridge,: Harvard University Press, 1987.
"One of the few existing slave narratives authored by a woman, this work offers a unique perspective on the complex plight of a black woman as slave and writer. Harriet Jacobs (c. 1813-1897) was born in Edenton, North Carolina, and taught to read and sew by one of her owners after her mother's death in about 1819. A fervent reader and ardent abolitionist, she originally published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in 1861, under the pseudonym Linda Brent."
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
"James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory." -- Oxford University Press website
McPherson, James M. For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
"McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war." -- Oxford University Press website
McPherson, James M. What They Fought For, 1861-1865. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.
"[S]hould be required reading for every Confederate sentimentalist. McPherson spells out in convincing detail how real Confederate soldiers (whether they owned slaves or not) knew as well as [Confederate Vice President] Alexander Stephens that they were fighting to preserve slavery and white supremacy, and most of them gloried that mission." -- Harry Watson, Brightleaf Review
Rawick, George P., editor. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Pub. Co., 1972.
"As a source for the study of slavery from the bottom up, the narratives are invaluable. They present a picture of slavery and slave culture that earlier studies of the peculiar institution could not provide." -- Choice
Reed, John Shelton. Whistling Dixie: Dispatches from the South. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
"A witty and sometimes outrageous collection of essays presenting one Southerner's viewpoint about what makes the South the South. As the Washington Post said, 'Reed knows his region intimately, probably as well as anyone around, and manages the impressive feat of regarding it both seriously and lightly.'"
Reed, John Shelton, and Dale Volberg Reed. 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
"Mini-essays are the mark of a title which focuses on Southern culture and history and which reveal common facts about the region. The focus on history and politics also includes information about the arts and literary approaches of the South, creating a well-rounded approach which will appeal to leisure audiences as well as students of Southern history." -- Midwest Book Review
Ward, Geoffrey C. The Civil War: An Illustrated History. New York: Knopf, 1990.
"Companion to PBS's phenomenally successful 9-part series of the same name. Here are glimpses into the lives of soldiers, slaves, and families who willingly fought against their own kin."
Wilson, Charles Reagan. Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.
"Charles Reagan Wilson's work brilliantly describes the civil religion (as described by Geertz) of the 'Lost Cause' that was pervasive in the Reconstruction and Early Modern South. Wilson argues that this civil religion was a combination of Christian and Confederate symbols. According to Wilson this civil religion was formed out of Confederate ministers attempts to reconcile defeat in the war with the Will of God and (as the ministers believed) Confederate righteousness."
Wilson, Charles Reagan, William Ferris, et al., editors. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
"This encyclopedia, a ten-year project involving more than 800 scholars and writers, offers an extraordinary portrait of one of the nation's richest cultural landscapes."
Note: all unattributed reviews are from the Amazon.com Website.
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Last revised: September 13, 2000