"Rally Round the Flag"

[william42]

The Imagined Civil War
Popular Literature of the North and South,
1861-1865.
By Alice Fahs.
Illustrated. 410 pp. Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press. $39.95

Reviewed by Charles B. Dew.

But there was another literature -- that ''trash'' and ''bombast'' -- that Alice Fahs believes merits our attention. The incredible outpouring of war poetry, sentimental stories, sensational novels, humor, juvenile fiction and war histories that gushed forth between 1861 and 1865 has its own tale to tell, she insists, and by the end of her fascinating book ''The Imagined Civil War,'' we are inclined to agree with her.

South of the Potomac, however, the prewar cult of domesticity reigned. Women were expected to sacrifice all for the sake of their new nation, to stand steadfast and unquestioning in the face of terrible loss -- and to do so within the confines of their own homes. Outside work, even nursing, received scant mention and little praise from Southern writers during the war.

Almost invariably, Fahs points out, tales of black heroism in battle ended with the death of the hero -- a trajectory that celebrated black bravery without having to imagine the full participation of black veterans in American life. The cultural landscape of the North was already being prepared for the postwar denial of black claims to full citizenship.

Southern writers presented a much different picture of the Negro, of course. In their view, the once happy slave, kidnapped by the vile Yankees and forced into the ranks, only wanted to get back to his former home so that he could ''belong to somebody,'' a return to the Negro's supposed natural state. Poems like ''The Contraband's Return'' insisted, as paradoxical as it may seem to our ears, that ''only slavery allowed true freedom'' to black people -- a persistent theme of Lost Cause fiction well into the 20th century.

Charles B. Dew teaches Southern history at Williams College. His newest book is the forthcoming ''Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War.''

Entire review here at this link:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E0DF1530F936A15751C0A9679C8B63


TW

 

[samgrant]

Add to that the many either undocumented or blatantly false items to be found in many Civil War "Trivia" books.