Exploring the American Civil War through 50 Historic Treasures

Julie Holcomb is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in Museum Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Holcomb received her Bachelor of Arts in History and Creative Writing from Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon; her Master of Library and Information Science, with a specialization in Archives and Records Management from the University of Texas at Austin (; and her PhD in Transatlantic History from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is the author of Moral Commerce: Quakers and The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy and the editor of Southern Sons, Northern Soldiers: The Civil War Letters of the Remley Brothers, 22nd Iowa Infantry. In addition to her books, Holcomb has published widely in a variety of academic and popular venues.

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Object Timeline

Civil War Timeline

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Part One: Causes



For Sale – “A Day I’ll Never Forgit”
Good Credit, Good Prices, & Good Profits: The Slave Labor Economy
Buy for the Sake of the Slave!: Quakers, Antislavery, and the Boycott of Slave Labor
Strike a Blow for Freedom: Black Activism and the Abolitionist Movement
“I will be harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice”: The Antebellum Antislavery Movement
Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Sumner: Challenges to the Expansion of Slavery in the West

Part Two: Politics



“A Man Kidnapped!”: Northern Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
“Honest Old Abe is Bound to Win”: The Election of 1860
The Union is Dissolved!: The Secession Crisis
“Strike for Your Altars and Your Fires!”: The Fight for the Border States
Securing Alliances: The Confederate Government and the Five Tribes
John Bull Makes a Choice: Cotton and International Politics

Part Three: Battlefield



A Sacred Emblem of the Battle of Glorieta Pass
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site: The Indian Wars in the Civil War Era
A Terrible Slaughter: The Battle of Gettysburg
“We Will Prove Ourselves Men”: The United States Colored Troops
Caring for the Wounded: Nurses in the Civil War
“His names was Bidwell Pedley”: Caring for the Dead during the Civil War

Part Four: Officers



“Let them surrender and go home”: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House
Lee’s Right Army: Stonewall Jackson
“The Beast”: Benjamin Butler and the Occupation of New Orleans
The “Father of Black Nationalism”: Martin Delany

Part Five: Soldiers



“Those d—d black hatted fellows”: The Iron Brigade of the West
Lee’s Shock Troops: Hood’s Texas Brigade
“What is to be done with the prisoners?”: Union and Confederate Prisons
Days of Infamy and Disgrace: The New York City Draft Riots
The Evolution of the Union Cavalry

Part Six: Home Front



“The Last Thought of a Dying Father”: The Northern Home Front
“Bread or Blood!”: The Southern Home Front during the Civil War
“Pounding on the Rock”: African American Families in the Civil War North
“I Wanted to Be My Own General”: Guerilla Warfare and the Homefront
On Her Own: The Texas Home Front during the Civil War

Part Seven: Symbols



“The Speechless Agony of the Fettered Slave”: The Symbolism of the Antislavery Movement
“The Little Woman Who Made the Great War”: Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin
“If you want my flag, you’ll have to take it over my dead body”: National and Regimental Flags during the Civil War
Setting the Beat for War: Popular Music in the North and the South

Part Eight: Technology



The Great Locomotive Chaise: Railroads and Military Strategy
A Scientific Foundation for Medical Care: The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion
“A curious marine monster”: Ironclads and Riverine Warfare
The Silk Dress Balloon: Aeronautics in the Civil War

Part Nine: Emancipation



Freedom’s Fort: The Beginnings of Emancipation
An Abolition War: The Emancipation Proclamation
Troubled Refuge: Contraband Camps
A New Birth of Freedom: Thirteenth Amendment
Help Me Find My People: Reconstructing Black Families

Part Ten: Legacy



“I Won’t Be Reconstructed”: Southerners and Confederate Defeat
Memorializing the Dead: Race, Heritage, and the Lost Cause
Reconciliation and Reunion: Blue and Gray Reunions in the Post-Civil War Era
The Black Confederate Story: Civil War History and Memory in the Age of the Internet
Stone Mountain: Confederate Monuments in the Twenty-First Century

Afterword

Index

Bibliography

About the Author