The Civil War was the most devastating event in U.S. history, in which over half a million Americans paid for their beliefs with their lives. The heroic battles, harrowing marches, and military genius of generals on both sides still inspire books, movies, and the imaginations of Civil War buffs. Less obvious are the economic, political, social, and cultural repercussions of the war, which continue to influence American life. Reconstruction and the end of slavery brought deep-seated problems to the reunited nation. This single-volume encyclopedia includes 245 entries on all facets of the conflicted era. It features articles on: * Battles and campaigns (Gettysburg, Shiloh, Sherman's March to the Sea) * Culture (music, photography, religion) * Economic affairs (cost of the war, gold, Richmond Bread Riot) * Foreign affairs (France, Great Britain, Laird rams) * Health and welfare (disease, medicine, prisons) * Ideologies (federalism, free-labor ideology) * Legislative landmarks (14th Amendment, Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Wade-Davis bill) * Military terms, strategy, and weaponry (cavalry, rifles, tactics) * Minorities (black suffrage, emancipation, Native Americans) * Political events and organizations (Constitutional Union party, election of 1860, fire-eaters) * Prominent individuals (Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman) * Social reform (abolitionism, women's rights movement) * Women (nurses, women in the war, individual women) More than 200 black-and-white illustrations, including over a dozen maps, complement the entries. A list of selected Civil War museums and historic sites, suggestions for further reading, recommended websites, and a chronology of the war round out this essential resource. Oxford's Student Companions to American History are state-of-the-art references for school and home, specifically designed and written for ages 12 through adult. Each book is a concise but comprehensive A-to-Z guide to a major historical period or theme in U.S. history, with articles on key issues and prominent individuals. The authors--distinguished scholars well-known in their areas of expertise--ensure that the entries are accurate, up-to-date, and accessible. Special features include an introductory section on how to use the book, further reading lists, cross-references, chronology, and full index.

The unifying theme that ties together this narrative is the transformation of late 19th-century republic ideology through a continuous interaction with an expanding market economy. Part I of this volume covers the antebellum America, 1815-1860. Part II interprets the Civil War Reconstruction era, 1860-1877, as a prolonged crisis of republican order. Part III sets forth demographic and economic patterns of change that were keyed to the spread of a national rail network and the development of steam power. It concentrates on western expansion; the postwar Southern economy; the linkage of factories, immigrants, and cities; and the growth of the corporate form of business management. It also examines the social and cultural consequences of these patterns of change and is organized around the middle-class quest for public orderliness. ISBN 0-669-04758-9 (pbk.): $13.00.

Despite the advances of the civil rights movement, many white southerners cling to the faded glory of a romanticized Confederate past. In The Making of a Confederate, William L. Barney focuses on the life of one man, Walter Lenoir of North Carolina, to examine the origins of southern white identity alongside its myriad ambiguities and complexities. Born into a wealthy slaveholding family, Lenoir abhorred the institution, opposed secession, and planned to leave his family to move to Minnesota, in the free North. But when the war erupted in 1860, Lenoir found another escape route--he joined the Confederate army, an experience that would radically transform his ideals. After the war, Lenoir, like many others, embraced the cult of the Lost Cause, refashioning his memory and beliefs in an attempt to make sense of the war, its causes, and its consequences. While some Southerners sank into depression, aligned with the victors, or fiercely opposed the new order, Lenoir withdrew to his acreage in the North Carolina mountains. There, he pursued his own vision of the South's future, one that called for greater self-sufficiency and a more efficient use of the land. For Lenoir and many fellow Confederates, the war never really ended. As he tells this compelling story, Barney offers new insights into the ways that (selective) memory informs history; through Lenoir's life, readers learn how individual choices can transform abstract historical processes into concrete actions.

A comprehensive study of secession in all fifteen slave states, Rebels in the Making is a political, social, and economic history of the late antebellum South that examines the appeal of secession to a variety of actors in these states and reveals it to be not a mass democratic movement but a revolution led from above.

A concise, comprehensive overview of the major personalities and pivotal events of the war that redefined the American nation.

Engages readers by tracing the individual and collective journeys of Americans. Offering a blend of political and social histories, The American Journey shows that living up to American ideals is an ongoing voyage–one that has become increasingly more inclusive of different groups and ideas. With the goal of making American history accessible, the authors use a strong, chronologically-organized narrative, with an emphasis on regional balance, and provide readers with the tools they need to understand history. The concise edition concentrates on the journey of individuals and groups that shape America with a trade-like, full color narrative format. Note: MyHistoryLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MyHistoryLab at no extra charge, please visit www.MyHistoryLab.com or use ISBN (VP ISBN: 9780205219575.

Three historians examine what drove southern secession in the winter of 1860-1861 and why it culminated in the American Civil War. Politicians and opinion leaders on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line struggled to formulate coherent responses to the secession of the deep South states. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861 triggered civil war and the loss of four upper South states from the Union. The essays by three senior historians in Secession Winter explore the robust debates that preceded these events. For five months in the winter of 1860–1861, Americans did not know for certain that civil war was upon them. Some hoped for a compromise; others wanted a fight. Many struggled to understand what was happening to their country. Robert J. Cook, William L. Barney, and Elizabeth R. Varon take approaches to this period that combine political, economic, and social-cultural lines of analysis. Rather than focus on whether civil war was inevitable, they look at the political process of secession and find multiple internal divisions—political parties, whites and nonwhites, elites and masses, men and women. Even individual northerners and southerners suffered inner conflicts. The authors include the voices of Unionists and Whig party moderates who had much to lose and upcountry folk who owned no slaves and did not particularly like those who did. Barney contends that white southerners were driven to secede by anxiety and guilt over slavery. Varon takes a new look at Robert E. Lee’s decision to join the Confederacy. Cook argues that both northern and southern politicians claimed the rightness of their cause by constructing selective narratives of historical grievances.

This is an outline of the economic crisis in the South based on the declining yields, increasing class stratification and higher slave prices. It supplies data on the property holdings and occupations of the elected representatives and finds the secessionists to be young, probably lawyers who were both ambitious and confident. Because the economic dislocation of the 1850s made people receptive to a rhetoric that emphasized conspiratorial abolitionists and almost paranoid fear of blacks and strangers, the politicians were able to persuade their constituents that a real crisis did exist and that secession was the only remedy.

The essays in this book, like all other texts, have been written in a historical context that shapes both the themes and the prose styles of the authors. A close reading of these texts would in fact lead to many overlapping contexts of politics, social hierarchies, modern communications, and international relations, but we want to focus briefly on two contextual influences that carry the most obvious connections to this book: the wide-ranging public debate about the proper curriculum for American schools and universities, and the more specific debate among historians about new trends in historical scholarship.

Written in a clear, engaging style with a straightforward chronological organization,The American Journeyintroduces readers to the key features of American political, social, and economic history. This new edition focuses more closely on the theme of the American journey, showing that our attempt to live up to and with our ideals is an ongoing process that has become ever more inclusive of different groups and ideas.Covering the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War to the present, and including the events of 9/11/2001, prominent coverage is given to politics, religion and the Great Wars. Hundreds of maps, graphs, and illustrations help readers absorb history and bring it to life.For those interested in a comprehensive study of post-Civil War U.S. history that is presented in a flowing, lively narrative.