Aberration of Mind: Suicide and Suffering in the Civil War–Era South

by Diane Miller Sommerville

More than 150 years after its end, we still struggle to understand the full extent of the human toll of the Civil War and the psychological crisis it created. In Aberration of Mind, Diane Miller Sommerville offers the first book-length treatment of suicide in the South during the Civil War era, giving us insight into both white and black communities, Confederate soldiers and their families, as well as the enslaved and newly freed. With a thorough examination of the dynamics of both racial and gendered dimensions of psychological distress, Sommerville reveals how the suffering experienced by Southerners living in a war zone generated trauma that, in extreme cases, led some Southerners to contemplate or act on suicidal thoughts.Sommerville recovers previously hidden stories of individuals exhibiting suicidal activity or aberrant psychological behavior she links to the war and its aftermath. This work adds crucial nuance to our understanding of how personal suffering shaped the way southerners viewed themselves in the Civil War era and underscores the full human costs of war.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American Civil War, American History, War, Disability Studies

435 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 25, 2018

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked how this book connected suicide in white men to the lost cause ideology and discussed women and african american suicides as well. It handled a heavy subject very well.

[Sandra Oldfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entirely new kind of scholarship that seems to be very well researched. A very important book in my estimation

[Mary Ellen Woods · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive and obvious

Despite the fact that the footnotes, bibliography, and appendix comprise 40% of the book pages, the author repeats the same ideas over and over. Nothing here is new. War is bad and it negatively impacts the participants and civilians who experience it. Anyone remotely familiar with PTSD will learn little and those familiar with norms of the period will learn nothing. Lots of research and documentation but poorly presented.