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Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War
In the Wake of War: Military Occupation, Emancipation, and Civil War America
The Civil War era marked the dawn of American wars of military occupation, inaugurating a tradition that persisted through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that continues to the present. In the Wake of War traces how volunteer and even professional soldiers found themselves tasked with the unprecedented project of wartime and peacetime military occupation, initiating a national debate about the changing nature of American military practice that continued into Reconstruction.
In the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, citizen-soldiers confronted the complicated challenges of invading, occupying, and subduing hostile peoples and nations. Drawing on firsthand accounts from soldiers in United States occupation forces, Andrew F. Lang shows that many white volunteers equated their martial responsibilities with those of standing armies, which were viewed as corrupting institutions hostile to the republican military ethos. With the advent of emancipation came the enlistment of African American troops into Union armies, facilitating an extraordinary change in how provisional soldiers interpreted military occupation. Black soldiers, many of whom had been formerly enslaved, garrisoned regions defeated by Union armies and embraced occupation as a tool for destabilizing the South's long-standing racial hierarchy. Ultimately, Lang argues, traditional fears about the army's role in peacetime society, grounded in suspicions of standing military forces and heated by a growing ambivalence about racial equality, governed the trials of Reconstruction.
Focusing on how U.S. soldiers--white and black, volunteer and regular--enacted and critiqued their unprecedented duties behind the lines during the Civil War era, In the Wake of War reveals the dynamic, often problematic conditions of military occupation.
In the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, citizen-soldiers confronted the complicated challenges of invading, occupying, and subduing hostile peoples and nations. Drawing on firsthand accounts from soldiers in United States occupation forces, Andrew F. Lang shows that many white volunteers equated their martial responsibilities with those of standing armies, which were viewed as corrupting institutions hostile to the republican military ethos. With the advent of emancipation came the enlistment of African American troops into Union armies, facilitating an extraordinary change in how provisional soldiers interpreted military occupation. Black soldiers, many of whom had been formerly enslaved, garrisoned regions defeated by Union armies and embraced occupation as a tool for destabilizing the South's long-standing racial hierarchy. Ultimately, Lang argues, traditional fears about the army's role in peacetime society, grounded in suspicions of standing military forces and heated by a growing ambivalence about racial equality, governed the trials of Reconstruction.
Focusing on how U.S. soldiers--white and black, volunteer and regular--enacted and critiqued their unprecedented duties behind the lines during the Civil War era, In the Wake of War reveals the dynamic, often problematic conditions of military occupation.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published December 18, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 19, 2024
I bought this book along with
After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War-by Gregory P. Downs because of a tweet from a Prof. who was using portions of both books in his class on The Civil War and Reconstruction.
Both this book and After Appomattox touches on how complicated it would be to keep a large active army garrisoning the South which was seen as "settled" and white. Mostly I shy away from the discussion because it too often seems to come from a disingenuous "Lost Cause" place. This book focuses on the idea of the volunteer citizen and the fights on who gets to claim that title and the attitudes and rights that go along with it.
A fantastic reading of the Emancipation Proclamation and how Lincoln hoped to use black soldiers to replace the white garrison soldiers already occupying the south.
Those same black soldiers then took every opportunity to define their service themselves even as the need for more garrison soldiers increased and a color line was created about certain jobs (like building roads or manning forts).
The book has an excellent use of first person accounts I only wish we had more black quotes. I hope to find more work zeroing down even more on how black soldiers (often formerly enslaved) projected power.
So much of the argument on who gets to serve where and what it means was happening while the larger battles were. However both this book and After Appomattox emphasis the larger more complicated violence that was happening in "liberated' territory and after the "fighting war" was declared over.
If you have any interest in the American Civil War these books give great context. It is so easy to get lost in the forward momentum of armies clashing on battlefields that we have turned into parks. I could spend the rest of my life only reading books about what army marched where and did what. I love those books. We need just as many books like this one though. Load bearing works that keep the whole edifice from falling down.
After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War-by Gregory P. Downs because of a tweet from a Prof. who was using portions of both books in his class on The Civil War and Reconstruction.
Both this book and After Appomattox touches on how complicated it would be to keep a large active army garrisoning the South which was seen as "settled" and white. Mostly I shy away from the discussion because it too often seems to come from a disingenuous "Lost Cause" place. This book focuses on the idea of the volunteer citizen and the fights on who gets to claim that title and the attitudes and rights that go along with it.
A fantastic reading of the Emancipation Proclamation and how Lincoln hoped to use black soldiers to replace the white garrison soldiers already occupying the south.
Those same black soldiers then took every opportunity to define their service themselves even as the need for more garrison soldiers increased and a color line was created about certain jobs (like building roads or manning forts).
The book has an excellent use of first person accounts I only wish we had more black quotes. I hope to find more work zeroing down even more on how black soldiers (often formerly enslaved) projected power.
So much of the argument on who gets to serve where and what it means was happening while the larger battles were. However both this book and After Appomattox emphasis the larger more complicated violence that was happening in "liberated' territory and after the "fighting war" was declared over.
If you have any interest in the American Civil War these books give great context. It is so easy to get lost in the forward momentum of armies clashing on battlefields that we have turned into parks. I could spend the rest of my life only reading books about what army marched where and did what. I love those books. We need just as many books like this one though. Load bearing works that keep the whole edifice from falling down.
May 2, 2024
Read for comps
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews