History Commons^™

Carolina Sunset, Cuban Sunrise: A Comparative Study Of Race, Class, And Gender In The Reconstructed South And Colonial Cuba, 1867-1869, Eric Walls

Madison Historical Review

The loss of the American Civil War and the consequence of Reconstruction literally turned the South on its head, profoundly altering the dynamics of race, class, and gender that previously defined antebellum Southern society. The letters of Harriet Rutledge Elliott Gonzales reveal one formerly elite South Carolina family’s struggle as they faced a new social landscape that forced them to adapt to new challenges, particularly surrounding emancipation and the drastic reversal of the norms that previously characterized Southern society that development entailed. Harriet Rutledge Elliot Gonzales never abandoned a sense of her “aristocratic” origins and “good blood,” despite the hardships …

Free Speech Or Sedition: Clement L. Valladigham And The Copperheads, 1860-1864, John Forsyth

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Abstract

The antiwar movement during the Civil War, led by the Peace Democrats and their more virulent cousins, the Copperheads, was remarkable from many perspectives. First, their civil disobedience and political dissent largely remained well within constitutional boundaries, and the voting booth was their preferred battleground throughout the war. Second, during the unprecedented Civil War, at least unprecedented from an American perspective, executive wartime authorities expanded with the crisis, often abridging civil rights under the auspices of war. Third, power lay mostly in the hands of the Radical Republicans, both at the national and state level, and the determination of …

Defying Civility: Female Writers And Educators In Nineteenth-Century America, Tess Evans

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis project investigates how northern American women in the nineteenth-century defied civility and what the consequences were. Primary and secondary source research of poetry, prose, letters, government documents, and personal accounts reveal that these women were able to step out of the domestic sphere to create a new world for themselves without the aid of males. This paper and accompanying online exhibit, Civil War Successes, explores how defying the notions of a civil woman paved the way for an earlier women’s movement than the twentieth-century. A nation torn apart by civil war saw women creating outlets for their …

Good Union People: Enduring Bonds Between Black And White Unionists In The Civil War And Beyond, James Schruefer

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The thesis investigates the nature of the relationship between white unionists during the American Civil War and their enslaved and free black counterparts. To do this it utilizes the records of the Southern Claims Commission, which collected testimony from former unionists and their character witnesses from 1872 to 1880. For comparative purposes, it focuses on two regions economically similar and frequently contested by opposing armies: Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and the region of central Tennessee to the southeast of Nashville. As the war began, white unionists were suddenly alienated from the larger community and faced persecution by authorities and threats of …

Evaluating Contested Ground: Civil War Interpretation In The Shenandoah Valley, Kyle P. Rothemich

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This research focuses on how three distinct Civil War sites in the Shenandoah Valley interpret the American Civil War. The Virginia Museum of the Civil War in New Market Virginia, the Visitor Center housed by the Kernstown Battlefield Association in Kernstown Virginia, and Harpers Ferry National Historical Park information center in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Each of these three organizations is administered by a different governing body ranging from the National Park Service to the State of Virginia, and lies in the geographical and cultural region of the Shenandoah Valley. Research is based off; interviews conducted with interpretative managers at …

Memory As Torchlight: Frederick Douglass And Public Memories Of The Haitian Revolution, James Lincoln

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The following explores how Frederick Douglass and others used public memories of the Haitian Revolution during the nineteenth century.

Retaliation With Restraint: Destruction Of Private Property In The 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Jeannie Cummings Harding

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The Second Shenandoah Valley Campaign in 1864 created new challenges for commanders, soldiers, and civilians on both sides. Pressure on General Grant and President Lincoln to end the war quickly precipitated an increase in the use and severity of hard war policies in the South. Meanwhile, Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early worked against his foe, implementing hard war in southern Pennsylvania in a desperate attempt to maintain his supply base in the Shenandoah Valley. Soldiers and civilians found themselves caught in the middle of an increasing cycle of destruction that they seemed to find equally demoralizing. Three towns suffered significant …