Catalogue Description: Examination of the Civil War as a political, cultural, economic and military phenomenon, with focus on the 1861-1865 period. Topics include causation historiography, major battles and their political context, the role of ordinary Americans in the conflict, slavery and emancipation, economic effects, Reconstruction, and the war’s enduring place in national memory.
The Civil War represents something of a paradox. Most ordinary Americans consider this to be one of the crucial moments in the nation's history. Yet many American historians claim that the war did little to change the basic facts of American society. Even more remarkably, many of those who study western civilization and recent world history treat this episode as too insignificant to warrant mention in their texts. Through exploration of the dramatic stories and objective assessments connected with the era it will be the purpose of this course to address the interests raised by both constituencies. Finding the happy median will be an interesting challenge for us. Jefferson Davis expressed the wish in 1881 that some future historian of the war era, "when the passions and prejudices of the day shall have given place to reason and sober thought," might, in his words, "better than a contemporary, investigate the causes, conduct, and results of the war." Although many of the passions and prejudices he feared have grown rather than abated in the years since he wrote, the result has been a fortunate outpouring of scholarship. We know far more about the war era now than did any single participant in the conflict.
Our investigation will have its foundations in the era's political and military history. Since these happened within a larger economic and social context we will devote considerable attention to these aspects of the war era. We will give special attention to the formation of identities and loyalties at the local, partisan, and regional levels, and to the process of community disruption and restoration. Finally we will examine the uses of the war by subsequent generations, including our own. Everyone agrees that the Civil War resonates with us in ways that other conflicts of equal importance (the Mexican War and the First World War, and perhaps even the revolution), do not. No prior knowledge of the period is assumed, though you are expected to be familiar with the basic facts of American History and with the material covered in your HST-11 Western Civ./Modern Era course. There will also be topics of special relevance to Civil War buffs.
There are several recurring topics and themes that will serve as organizing concepts for a number of our assignments this term. These include (a) the question of whether the Civil War was revolutionary, (b) the era's manifestations of the problems of historical contingency, (c) the role of external factors, including trends in the larger society and the international context of the Civil War, (d) the Civil War as a problem in community, (d) the war as a problem in historical evidence and the uses of the past, and (e) the war era as a problem in narrative and story.