There is little discussion of postwar electoral results or legislative debates. With such a broad canvass, however, some areas inevitably seem unfinished. Throughout, he offers insightful summaries of major political events and cultural rituals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He also devotes considerable attention to literary figures of the era, both familiar (Walt Whitman) and less well known (Albion Tourgée). In a tightly written chapter, he explores the all- encompassing "soldier's faith" and surprising blue-gray solidarity of postwar recollections. Heexamines the various customs of graveside decoration and the birth of Memorial Day. īlight's sources for this complicated analysis are wide-ranging. Instead, he shows with exquisite care exactly how the emancipationist view "lived to fight another day" and helped establish a powerful "prelude to future reckonings" (397). Nonetheless, Blight's conclusion falls short of declaring, as some historians have done, that the South lost the war but won the contest for its legacy. Again and again, Blight demonstrates the extent to which bitterness over race replaced sectional antagonism as the fundamental divide of American life. The author depicts a steady retreat from the principles of what he terms the "emancipationist vision" of the Civil War (2). Significantly, Blight labels the bail episode "a strange sideshow" (59). Thenation was well on its way toward a post-Civil War culture of separation and discrimination. By the late 1860s, the desire for reunion was already overwhelming calls for socioeconomic change and racial equality. Others, especially African-Americans, saw in Davis' release an ominous sign. He remained unrepentant, writing a combative memoir and stoking popular affection for what many white southerners came to call their "Lost Cause." The former rebel leader never again spent time behind bars-never even faced trial. Just two years after the end of slavery, a radical abolitionist offered a dramatic gesture of reconciliation to the foremost living symbol of the Slave Power.įor those who sought national reconstruction after the bloody Civil War, it was a triumphant moment. What makes this development so interesting is that Smith had once been part of the "Secret Six," a group that funded John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. In May 1867, Gerrit Smith was one of eighteen men who posted bail for imprisoned ex-Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Consider, for example, this provocative fact. $29.95īlight's Race and Reunion is an ambitious, elegant work on the first fifty years of Civil War memory that weaves together several disciplines in masterful fashion but ultimately leaves some critical questions unanswered. Blight (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2001) 485pp. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34.1 (2003) 106-107 In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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