The Civil War: The Final Year Told by Those Who Lived It

The Civil War #4

by Aaron Sheehan-Dean (Editor)

After 150 years the Civil War still holds a central place in American history and self-understanding. It is our greatest national drama, at once heroic, tragic, and epic—our Iliad, but also our Bible, a story of sin and judgment, suffering and despair, death and resurrection in a “new birth of freedom.” The Civil War: The Final Year brings together letters, diary entries, speeches, articles, messages, and poems to provide an incomparable literary portrait of a nation at war with itself, while illuminating the military and political events that brought the Union to final victory and slavery and secession to their ultimate destruction.

The final volume of this highly acclaimed four-volume series begins with the controversial Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid on Richmond in March 1864 and ends with the proclamation of emancipation in Texas in June 1865. It collects 160 pieces by more than one hundred participants and observers, among them Abraham Lincoln, William T. Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, and Herman Melville, as well as Union officers Charles Harvey Brewster, James A. Connolly, and Stephen Minot Weld; Confederate diarists Catherine Edmondston, Kate Stone, and Judith W. McGuire; freed slaves Spottswood Rice, Garrison Frazier, and Frances Johnson; and Confederate soldiers J.F.J. Caldwell, Samuel T. Foster, and William Pegram. The selections include vivid and haunting firsthand accounts of battles and campaigns—the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Atlanta, the Crater, Franklin, and Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas—as well as of the Fort Pillow massacre; the struggle to survive inside Andersonville prison; the burning of Columbia and Richmond; the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment; the surrender at Appomattox; and Lincoln’s assassination.

The Civil War: The Final Year includes an introduction, headnotes, a chronology of events, biographical and explanatory endnotes, full-color endpaper maps, and an index.

Genres: Civil War, History, American Civil War, Nonfiction, American History, Anthologies, Military History

1024 pages, Hardcover

First published March 6, 2014

About the author

Aaron Sheehan-Dean is Fred C. Frey Chair of Southern Studies at Louisiana State University. His previous books include The Civil War: The Final Year Told by Those Who Lived It and Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia. He is currently editing the Cambridge History of the American Civil War.

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Civil War: The Final Year

Beginning in 2011, The Library of America has been publishing an annual volume of eyewitness accounts in commemoration of each year of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. This year, 2014, marks the final volume of the series, titled simply: "The Civil War: The Final Year Told by Those Who Lived It". Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Professor of Southern Studies at Louisiana State University edited the volume.

This volume offers first-hand source material on the Civil War beginning in March, 1864 with a Union cavalry raid led by Colonel Ulric Dahlgren. When Dahlgren was killed, papers were found on his person regarding an assassination attempt on Confederate President, Jefferson Davis. The nature of the "Dahlgren Affair" remains mysterious. The volume concludes in June, 1865 with a proclamation from Union General Gordon Granger announcing the surrender of all Confederate forces west of the Mississippi and freeing all slaves in Texas. Granger's order became the basis for the holiday of Juneteenth.

The volume includes 160 documents by more than 100 Civil War participants. The documents include official papers, excerpts from books and newspapers, diaries, memoirs, letters, and much more, selected for "their historical significance, their literary quality, and their narrative energy". The book includes writings from highly prominent individuals, including Lincoln, Davis, Grant, Sherman, Lee and Douglass together with writings from many lesser known individuals, including soldiers and officers, former slaves, civilians, and prisoners of war. Some of the documents will be familiar to many readers while many others will offer readers with a broad background in the Civil War a fresh, new perspective on the events they describe.

The events covered in the volume are indeed momentous, The entries described include battles and campaigns including The Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the Crater, the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, the sea battle between the C.S.S. Alabama and the Kersage, Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, the March to Sea, the burning of Columbia, South Carolina and of Richmond and more. A great deal of the volume documents the use of African American troops, the Fort Pillow Massacre, and the efforts and hardships of the soon to be freed slaves. The volume covers the political events of the war, including the 1864 presidential campaign and Lincoln's reelection and various efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to the war. The volume describes the surrenders of Lee and Johnston, the assassination of Lincoln, and the Grand Review of Grant's and Sherman's armies held in Washington, D.C. in May, 1865. The entries in the volume are chronologically arranged. Thus the perspective frequently shifts between various military actions, between North and South, and between military and political events. The reader thus gets a broad view of the conflict.

Each entry begins with a caption identifying the nature and purpose of the document together with an introductory paragraph by Sheehan-Dean. The introductory material provides context to each entry for readers who may be unfamiliar with the event. The volume also includes biographical entries on the author, whether familiar or obscure, of each document, a detailed chronology of the events of 1864-1865, basic maps and an short overview. All these materials assist in the understanding of the volume. The volume includes over 730 pages of original source material in addition to the extensive chronology, biographies, and notes.

With such a large selection of documents, it is difficult to single any out for special mention. Documents that increased my understanding include the account by James Gilmore of his visit of Jefferson Davis to explore peace possibilities in September, 1864 (p. 338), the Address of the "Colored National Convention to the People of the United States" of October 6, 1864,(p. 414), Henry Garnet's Memorial Discourse to Congress on the death of slavery of February 12, 1865, (p. 583), Lois Bryan Adams' eyewitness articles about the Grand Review (p. 728) and Emma LeCompte's description of the burning of Columbia (p. 598). Many more examples could be selected.

It is moving to read this volume through from cover to cover and to feel a strong cumulative and emotional impact. The book helped me understand why the Civil War remains a seminal event in our nation's history and important for Americans' sense of self-understanding. I have learned a great deal from each of the four books in the Library of America Civil War series as they were issued. This final volume and the series as a whole admirably fulfills the "Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It" goal: "to shape a narrative that is both broad and balanced in scope, while at the same time doing justice to the number and diversity of voices and perspectives preserved for us in the writing of the era". This series deserves to be read and treasured by those interested in the American experience. The LOA kindly provided me with a review copy of this book.

Robin Friedman

[Kenneth Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fourth and final volume in the set. I thought the first three were excellent, but this one exceeds them.

The accounts in this volume show how brutal the war had become over the past 4 years. In a letter to his sisters Achilles V. Clark, a Confederate sergeant, describes the brutality that occurred at the massacre at Fort Pillow. Fort Pillow was on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River 40 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. He writes, “Words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negroes would run up to our men fall upon their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. The white men fared but little better.” “General (Nathan Bedford) Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued. A very graphic account indeed.

Eugene Forbes diary from June 13 to June 30, 1864 describes the conditions at Andersonville in Georgia where 26,000 Union prisoners were crowded into the 16 acre stockade. The inhumane treatment is very disturbing and sad.

As the war was coming to an end, Abraham Lincoln visited the Union troops, in the former Confederate capitol of Richmond shortly before his assassination. This visit helped reinforced to the former slaves that their freedom was indeed permanent. “One enthusiastic old negro woman exclaimed, ‘I know that I am free for I have seen Father Abraham and felt him’”. (Thomas Morris Chester, April 1865).

When I started reading the first volume of this set I wondered how I would be able to finish all four. I was thinking that this gift from my son might have been too much of a good thing. Admittedly it took a while, but each account from the men and women who lived it keeps your interest high and each volume a pleasure to read. The accounts of historians of the Civil War cover many of the same time periods written from a historical perspective, but it is different to read an account written as a heartfelt letter to family or a diary entry at the end of a long days march or battle where the loss of comrades is still fresh on your mind because you are still surrounded by the dead and wounded as you are writing.

Thanks to Library of America for publishing this excellent set which will be valued addition to my library.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This represents the fourth volume in a book series--and the final one. What makes the series so powerful is the first person approach--using diaries, letters, and other primary material to provide a human face to the war. This volume begins with a brief essay setting some context for what is to follow.

Then, the material. The very first entry is from March, 1864. On March 8, Catherine Edmondston, a North Carolina resident, wrote of Judson Kilpatrick's raid (many referred to him as "Kill-cavalry" because of his recklessness) and the death of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren in this ill-fated venture. As examples of other entries (selected by randomly flipping pages): Herman Melville's poem, "The Armies of the Wilderness"; Eugene Forbes, writing in his diary of his early days as a Union prisoner at Andersonville; a letter to the editor from James Gilmore, who speaks of his failed trip to Richmond to speak of peace; Major James Connolly's letter to his wife regarding the Battle of Jonesboro, one of the key actions in Sherman's effort to take Atlanta; Mary Mallard's account of her experiences with Sherman's forces in their march to the sea; a letter from Luther Rice Mills, a Confederate officer, to his brother about the difficult conditions facing Confederate at Petersburg. The very last entry? General Granger's order that the Emancipation Peroclamation was now operative in Texas as of June, 1865.

Other elements of the book after that passage add value to the enterprise.Pages 739 and thereafter provide a chronology from Kilpatrick;s raid through an assessment of the number of deaths among armed forces on both sides. This is followed by a set of brief biographical sketches, from Charles Francis Adams to Susan Woolker, wife of a Confederate soldier (the sketches are of those whose works are included in this volume).

All in all, a magnificent resource on the Civil War, a worthy volume in this series.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This, the final volume in this series, tells the “story” of the final year of the Civil War by those who lived it. It begins in March 1864 and ends when the last slaves were freed in 1865.

Some interesting facts from this volume:

In a referendum held on June 8, 1861, Tennessee voters endorsed leaving the Union by 104,913 to 47,238. Secession was opposed by 70% of the voters in East Tennessee, a mountainous region with relatively few slaveholders and would remain bitterly divided between Secessionists and Unionists.

Ellen Renshaw House had moved to Knoxville with her family (from Georgia) shortly before the war. She wrote in her diary, “God grant it is not so. It is so.” After Lee surrendered, she said that the Confederacy put too much trust in Lee and not enough in God.

May 1864 – Union losses in the Battle of the Wilderness were 17,666 men killed, wounded, or missing, while Confederate casualties are estimated to have totaled 11,000.

There is a long poem included in the book that was written by a visitor who traveled to Virginia to visit his cousin, a Lieutenant Colonel with the New York Calvary. The poem was called “The Armies of the Wilderness”. The visitor? Herman Melville.

The son of President Zachary Taylor, Major General Richard Taylor commanded the Confederate forces opposing the Union advance up the Red River in the spring of 1864.

The decision to build Andersonville was not made until late fall in 1863. A 16-acre stockade designed to hold 10,000 men began in January 1864. By the end of May, the camp held nearly 18,000 men and nearly 1,500 prisoners had already died.

Union forces held Brazos Island (at the mouth of the Rio Grande), as well as Brownsville, Texas, for a bit in an attempt to block Confederate trade with Europe through Mexican ports. You’ll need to read the book to discover how successful this was.

In August 1864, Lincoln became the first president since 1840 to be nominated for a second term when he received the nearly unanimous vote of the National Union Convention, a coalition of Republicans and War Democrats. The president feared he would lose the election because “the people” wanted peace, not war, and they would not have peace until slavery was abandoned.

September 1864 – The 4-month long Atlanta campaign cost the Union about 37,000 men and the Confederates, about 32,000.

The letter from Rachel Ann Wicker, in Ohio, to John Andrew, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, regarding equal pay for black soldiers was most interesting.

I had no idea there was a “Colored National Convention.” Frederick Douglass, Williams Wells Brown, Henry Highland Garnet, and John Mercer Langston were among 145 delegates from 18 states who attended the National Convention of Colored Men in Syracuse, NY, on October 4th – 7th in 1864. The convention established the National Equal Rights League and adopted an address to the public written by Douglass, which can be found on pp. 414-431. In essence, they were all about “Justice.”

Congressional elections held in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, in mid-October resulted in Republican gains in all three states.

Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, Sheridan’s victories in the Shenandoah Valley, and McClellan’s rejection of the peace plank in the Democratic platform brought about a reversal in Lincoln’s political fortunes. On November 8th, he became the first president to be reelected since Andrew Jackson in 1832.

The only states that seemed to have gone for McClellan were Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey.

At one point, the president stated, “I am in favor of short statutes of limitations in in politics.”

The Constitutional Convention met in Annapolis, MD in April 1864 and voted in favor of immediate abolition of slavery. They rejected proposals to compensate slave owners and to apprentice the minor children of freed slaves to their masters. After being approved by voters in October, the new Constitution went into effect on November 1st.
Even back then, the wheels of justice turned slowly.

Before his decision to assassinate Lincoln and his cabinet, Booth’s first plan was to abduct President Lincoln, take him to Richmond, and use him as a hostage in order to force the resumption of prisoner exchanges.

The information / letter written from Henry Nutt, a prominent Wilmington, NC merchant to Governor Zebulon B. Vance, regarding reports of a large slave insurrection was intriguing. It seems that due to the war, there was a shortage of white men available to enforce slavery. This region was thoroughly drained of white males, age 13 and up. Thus, it became increasingly difficult to sustain the patrols that helped maintain slavery in the south by monitoring roads and capturing runaways.

Fort Fisher guarded the entrance to Wilmington, NC, the last major port still in Confederate hands, as of December 1864.

I had to reread this section a few times, but Andrew Johnson, a Conservative War Democrat (prior to becoming vice president, and then president), was the Military Government of Tennessee (since 1862). Although this seems surprising, he was actually still with the Union and appointed by Lincoln after Tennessee was retaken. The above info. Was included in a forward to a Petition of the Colored Citizens of Nashville to the Union Convention of Tennessee regarding the Right to Vote.

In Sherman’s march to the sea, his army was accompanied by as many as 20,000 freed people who had liberated themselves by following the Union forces as they had marched through Georgia. There’s a lot more to this and I highly recommend that people check out this book, for more information!

We’ve come a long way, baby! The information about the people who voted to abolish slavery (it took more than one try) was informative. Today’s people would be shocked to learn that the Democrats and border state unionists initially prevented the amendment from winning the 2/3 majority necessary for passage. Although Delaware, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Mississippi would vote against ratification, the 13th Amendment would be approved by 27 states, including eight former members of the Confederacy. On December 18, 1865, Secretary Seward declared the ratification was complete.

On February 20, 1865, the Confederate House of Representatives voted 40-37 on a bill that authorized the Confederate Army to enlist slaves with the permission of their masters, but without providing for their emancipation.

In the passage about Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address, I learned that one eighth (1/8) of the whole population of the US was colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it.

In the next passage, information provided by Frederick Douglass, America’s leading black abolitionist, in his response to Lincoln’s Inaugural speech, was most enlightening.

A leading Radical Republican, Massachusetts Senator, Charles Sumner, lead a filibuster in late February 1865 that prevented the seating of senators representing the Louisiana state government supported by Lincoln. Sumner believed Congress should play the leading role in Reconstruction, opposed restoring representation to Southern states that denied black men the vote and failed to guarantee the equality of all persons before the law.

By the spring of 1865, Lee’s army of about 60,000 men held a line that extended for 37 miles from East of Richmond to Southwest of Petersburg. Unfortunately, there were 100,000 Union troops opposing him, and at this late stage of the war, I’m sure you can guess what happened.

No real surprises regarding the information about Lincoln’s assassination. After reading all that I have (about the Civil War), I was thrilled to read the info. provided by Elizabeth Keckly! Towards the end of her passage, she wrote, “The Moses of my people had fallen in the hour of his triumph.” That one sentence says so much.

When Johnson was sworn in as President, a Reverend Thompson said, “the Statue of Liberty that surmounts the dome of the Capitol and was put there by Lincoln, looked down on the city and on the nation and said, “Our government is unchanged – it has merely passed from the hands of one man into those of another. Let the dead bury their dead. Follow thou me’.”” A nice sentiment, but one that would not prove entirely true.

On May 26, 1865, General Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered all Confederate forces west of the Mississippi. Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston on June 18th and issued General Orders No. 3 the following day. His order, enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation, brought freedom to about 250,000 slaves in Texas, and became the basis for the African American holiday of Juneteenth.

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dedicated history lovers will find many items of interest in this collection of contemporary writing by ordinary folks, soldiers, generals, politicians and Abe Lincoln during the final year of the Civil War.
You can read a diary entry by Catherine Edmondston of North Carolina, McClellan’s acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination. Lincoln’s second inaugural address, a poem by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and a personal reminiscence by Elizabeth Keckley, Mrs. Lincoln’s modiste (dressmaker).
There’s a lot more in The Civil War: The Final Year by Those Who Lived It.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting reading about people and their stories about the civile war. The love, the grief and the horror of war. Also, the love and heroism of the people who were in this war or affected by it.
The sadness of families torn about by their beliefs, some fighting for the South and some for the North. It also tells of the spirit of good at times as soldiers or strangers help each other through this
horrific time.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 - final book for class and some answers about the war !! Woo

[Garry · Rating 5 out of 5]

12/17/2020

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This final volume in the four-volume documentary history of the Civil War published by Library of America provides a terrific capstone to the set. The sources are from a variety of voices, most of the major events are represented by both Union and Confederate voices, and the editor provides several documents that are only available in archives. Much of the accounts, particularly in the last days of the war and after (the assassination of Lincoln) are still moving to read. This was a very impressive and ambitious project, and good reading, too.

[Nick Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

the butler-ould letter "exchanging prisoners" is great.