The Divided Family In Civil War America

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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.

E-Book Content

The Divided Family in Civil War America C IVI L WAR AM E RICA Gary W. Gallagher, editor The Divided 8 Family7 in Civil War America Amy Murrell Taylor t he u n i v er si t y of nort h c a rol i na pr ess | ch a pel h ill © 2005 The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Designed by April Leidig-Higgins Set in Bulmer by Copperline Book Services, Inc. Manufactured in the United States of America The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Taylor, Amy Murrell. The divided family in Civil War America / Amy Murrell Taylor. p. cm. — (Civil War America) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8078-2969-2 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. United States — History — Civil War, 1861 – 1865 — Social aspects. 2. Family — United States — History — 19th century. 3. United States — Social conditions — To 1865. I. Title. II. Series. e468.9.t38 2005 973.7'1 — dc22 2005010248 A portion of this work appeared earlier, in somewhat different form, as “Union Father, Rebel Son: Families and the Question of Civil War Loyalty,” in The War Was You and Me: Civilians in the American Civil War, ed. Joan Cashin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), and is reproduced here with permission. 09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1 For my family This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1 Union Father, Rebel Son 13 2 Marriage and Courtship 35 3 Brothers and Sisters 63 4 Border Crossing and the Treason of Family Ties 91 5 Border Dramas and the Divided Family in the Popular Imagination 123 6 Reconciliations Lived and Imagined 153 7 Reconciliation and Emancipation 191 Epilogue 209 Appendix: A Note on Numbers and Sources 215 Notes 217 Bibliography 279 Index 309 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations Henry Lane Stone 14 Antonia Ford and Joseph Willard 54 Two West Point “brothers” and a slave 80 “The Return Home,” Harper’s Weekly 179 “The Tearful Convention,” Harper’s Weekly 181 “Naughty Boy and Uncle Sam,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper 182 “ ‘Uncle Tom’ and His Grandchild,” Harper’s Weekly 205 “Testing the Question,” Harper’s Weekly 206 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments
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