The War Was You and Me

Though civilians constituted the majority of the American population and were intimately involved with almost every aspect of the war, we know little about the civilian experience of the Civil War. These essays recover the stories of civilians from Natchez to New England.

---

Though civilians constituted the majority of the American population and were intimately involved with almost every aspect of the war, we know little about the civilian experience of the Civil War. That experience was inherently dramatic. Southerners lived through the breakup of basic social and economic institutions, including, of course, slavery. Northerners witnessed the reorganization of society to fight the war. And citizens of the border regions grappled with elemental questions of loyalty that reached into the family itself. These essays recover the stories of civilians from Natchez to New England. They address the experiences of men, women and children; of whites, slaves and free blacks; and of civilians from numerous classes. Not least of these stories are the on-the-ground experiences of slaves seeking emancipation and the actions of white Northerners who resisted the draft. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume are Peter W. Bardaglio, William Blair, W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Margaret S. Creighton, J. Matthew Gallman, Joseph T. Glatthaar, Anthony E. Kaye, Robert Kenzer, Elizabeth D. Leonard, Amy E. Murrell, George C. Rable, Nina Silber, Mark M.
Smith, Mar