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The University of North Carolina Press
336 pp., 61/8 x 91/4, 9 illus., 1 table, append., notes, bibl., index
Civil War America
The Divided Family in Civil War America
The Civil War has long been described as a war pitting "brother against brother." The divided family is an enduring metaphor for the divided nation, but it also accurately reflects the reality of America's bloodiest war. Connecting the metaphor to the real experiences of families whose households were split by conflicting opinions about the war, Amy Murrell Taylor provides a social and cultural history of the divided family in Civil War America.
In hundreds of border state households, brothers--and sisters--really did fight one another, while fathers and sons argued over secession and husbands and wives struggled with opposing national loyalties. Even enslaved men and women found themselves divided over how to respond to the war. Taylor studies letters, diaries, newspapers, and government documents to understand how families coped with the unprecedented intrusion of war into their private lives. Family divisions inflamed the national crisis while simultaneously embodying it on a small scale--something noticed by writers of popular fiction and political rhetoric, who drew explicit connections between the ordeal of divided families and that of the nation. Weaving together an analysis of this popular imagery with the experiences of real families, Taylor demonstrates how the effects of the Civil War went far beyond the battlefield to penetrate many facets of everyday life.
"brother against brother"
-- to the real experiences of families, particularly in border states, whose households were split by divided loyalties. She studies letters and diaries to understand how families coped with division between husbands and wives, fathers and sons, and she traces the adoption of the image of the
"house divided"-- in newspapers, government documents, and popular fiction to describe the divided nation.
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"A must for any historian who wants to know more about how war affected the people who lived in the border states, both before and after the conflict."
--North Carolina Historical Review
"Taylor engages us in thinking about the divided family in a more complete way through the sheer variety of her perspectives. . . . Interesting and well-written."
--H-Minerva
"A valuable book on a fascinating subject, and Taylor has provided a valuable historical service by giving voice and personalities to the often characterless stereotypes of the divided family. . . . Well-written and well-constructed. . . . A compelling study of the divided family within American popular culture, and a testament to the importance of family within everyday society."
--H-South
"Taylor engages us in thinking about the divided family in a more complete way through the sheer variety of her perspectives. . . . [An] interesting and well-written work that may lead others to engage in more work on this subject."
--H-Minerva
Cloth: $39.95
© 2007 The University of North Carolina Press
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