UNC Press - The Long Shadow of the Civil War

240 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 9 illus., 1 map, notes, bibl., index

Cloth

ISBN 978-0-8078-3381-0

Published: April 2010

Large Print

ISBN 978-0-8078-7909-2

Published: June 2011

The Long Shadow of the Civil War

Southern Dissent and Its Legacies

By Victoria E. Bynum

In The Long Shadow of the Civil War, Victoria Bynum relates uncommon narratives about common Southern folks who fought not with the Confederacy, but against it. Focusing on regions in three Southern states--North Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas--Bynum introduces Unionist supporters, guerrilla soldiers, defiant women, socialists, populists, free blacks, and large interracial kin groups that belie stereotypes of the South and of Southerners as uniformly supportive of the Confederate cause.

Examining regions within the South where the inner civil wars of deadly physical conflict and intense political debate continued well into the era of Reconstruction and beyond, Bynum explores three central questions. How prevalent was support for the Union among ordinary Southerners during the Civil War? How did Southern Unionists and freedpeople experience both the Union's victory and the emancipation of slaves during and after Reconstruction? And what were the legacies of the Civil War--and Reconstruction--for relations among classes and races and between the sexes, both then and now?

Centered on the concepts of place, family, and community, Bynum's insightful and carefully documented work effectively counters the idea of a unified South caught in the grip of the Lost Cause.

About the Author

Victoria E. Bynum is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history at Texas State University, San Marcos. She is author of The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War and Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (both from UNC Press).

Reviews

"The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth has come and gone, and with it a flood of books about the sixteenth president. But the sesquicentennial of the Civil War now looms on the horizon, promising its own deluge of books of every size, shape and description. We will be fortunate indeed if in sheer originality and insight they measure up to . . . The Long Shadow of the Civil War, [a] new work by . . . Victoria Bynum . . . on the Confederate experience."
--Eric Foner, The Nation

"Bynum highlights the 'solid South' as a construction and even more successfully presents the importance of 'kinship, community, and place' in sustaining resistance to oppression."
--Publishers Weekly

"Bynum has plunged deeply into the primary sources on these interesting individuals, family groups, and local communities. . . . Valuable . . . because it proves that dissent was not rare and insignificant."
--H-Civil War

"Those who enjoy the study of Reconstruction social and political battles as much or more than the military conflicts of the Civil War will find a wealth of material here for further study. . . . [Bynum's] engaging writing style will no doubt interest many readers of her book as well."
--TOCWOC

"Bynum maps a road that few took, but the evocative stories of these families demand notice."
--Virginia Quarterly Review

"Supported by impressive research and crafted to enlighten rather than celebrate or condemn, this book offers a penetrating portrait of the dissenters and their world. A strong addition to upper-level Civil War collections, it will also serve as a lively read for the general public. . . . Highly recommended."
--Choice