1st Edition
The Confederate Experience Reader Selected Documents and Essays
The Confederate Experience Reader provides students and professors with the essential materials needed to understand and appreciate the major issues confronting the Southern Republic's brief existence during the American Civil War. This anthology covers the full history of the Confederate experience including the origins of the antebellum South, the rise of southern nationalism, the 1860 election and the subsequent Secession Crisis, the military conflict, and Reconstruction. Drawing from a full range of primary writings that describe the experience of living in the Southern Republic in vivid detail, as well as a careful selection of secondary works by prominent scholars in the field of confederate history, The Confederate Experience Reader allows students to situate the Confederate experience within the larger context of Southern and American history.
TABLE OF CONTENT:
CHAPTER ONE: DIVERGING CULTURES, COLONIAL PERIOD TO 1846
Documents:
United States Constitution (as related to slavery)
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Holms
April 22, 1820
John C. Calhoun Speeches
Exposition and Protest (1828)
Fort Hill Address (1831)
U. S. Senate (1837) and (1850)
Essays:
Edmund S. Morgan
"Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox" (Journal of American History, 1972)
Don E. Fehrenbacher
The South and Three Sectional Crises (1980)
Chapter one, "The Missouri Controversy and the Sources of Southern Sectionalism"
CHAPTER TWO: SECTIONAL TENSIONS, 1846-1860
Documents:
George Fitzhugh
Cannibals All! or Slaves Without Masters and Sociology
for the South, or the Failure of Free Society
Hinton Rowan Helper
The Impending Crisis of the South
Southern Editorials on Sumner Caning
Dred Scott Decision
Southern Editorials on the Dred Scott Decision
Southern Editorials on John Brown's Raid
Essays:
William L. Barney
The Road to Secession: a New Perspective on the Old South (1972)
Chapter three, "The Radical Effort"
Frank L. Owsley
"The Fundamental Cause of the Civil War: Egocentric
Sectionalism" (Journal of Southern History, 1941)
CHAPTER THREE: THE SECESSION CRISIS
Documents:
Jefferson Davis's Farewell Speech to U.S. Senate
Southern Editorials on Secession
Robert Toombs's Secessionist Speech
Alexander H. Stephens's Unionist Speech
Secession Ordinances
Declarations of Causes of Seceding States
South Carolina's Address to the People of the Slaveholding States
Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Dairy From Dixie
April, 1861
Essays:
James L. Abrahamsom
The Men of Secession and Civil War, 1859-1861 (2000)
Chapter six, "Alexander Stephens, Deep South Secession, and the Failure of Unionism"
Dwight Lowell Dumond
The Secession Movement 1860-1861 (1931)
Chapter ten, "The Secession of the Gulf States"
CHAPTER FOUR: ESTABLISHING THE SOUTHERN REPUBLIC
Documents:
The Constitution of the Confederate States of America
Jefferson Davis's Inaugural Address
Jefferson Davis's Message to the Confederate Congress
Alexander Stephens's Cornerstone Speech
Essays:
George C. Rable
The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics
(1994)
Chapter four, "Establishing Political Legitimacy"
Charles M. Hubbard
The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy (2000)
Chapter three, "The Burden of Cotton"
CHAPTER FIVE: A WAR FOR LIBERTY AND SLAVERY, MILITARY EVENTS AND ISSUES,
1861-1862
Documents:
Songs:
"Bonnie Blue Flag"
"Georgia, My Georgia"
Letter from David Pierson to William H. Pierson
April 22, 1861
Letter from Reuben Allen Pierson to William H. Pierson
November 12, 1861
Letter from Shephard Pryor to his Wife
February 12, 1862
Letter from William Ross Stilwell to his Wife Molly
September 10, 1862
Letter from William Ross Stilwell to his Wife Molly
September 8, 1862
General John B. Gordon
Reminiscences of the Civil War
Kate Cumming Diary
Essays:
Gary G. Gallagher
The Antietam Campaign (1999)
"The Net Result of the Campaign Was in Our Favor:
Confederate Reaction to the Maryland Campaign"
Richard M. McMurry
Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History (1989)
CHAPTER SIX: THE DAILY LIFE OF JOHNNY REB
Documents:
Carlton McCarthy,
Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia
Diary of Chaplain Thomas H. Deavenport
Letter of Lieutenant John W. Comer
Reminiscences of Sergeant James L. Cooper
Letter from Benjamin Mobley to his Parents
August 25, 1861
Letter from Madison Kilpatrick to his Wife
October 17, 1864
Reminiscences of Sam R. Watkins
Essays:
Philip Burnham
With My Face to the Enemy: Perspectives on the Civil War
(2001)
"The Andersonvilles of the North"
Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr.
A Shield and Hiding Place: The Religious Life of the Civil War Armies (1988)
Chapter Five, "The Chariot of Fire: Religion,
Revivalism, and Confederate Failure"
CHAPTER SEVEN: CONFEDERATE WOMEN
Documents:
Letter from Louticia Jackson to Asbury H. Jackson
August 23, 1863
Reminiscences of James M. Loughborough
Letter from Henrietta E. Lee to General Hunter
July 20, 1864
Letter from Eva B. Jones to Mary Jones
June 13, June 17, and July 14, 1865
Dolly Sumner Lunt Burge Diary
January 1864-April 1865, passim
Essays:
Drew Gilpin Faust, Thavolia Glymph, and George C. Rable
"A Woman's War: Southern Women in the Civil War"
In Edward D. C. Campbell, Jr., and Kym S. Rice eds.
A Woman's War: Southern Women, Civil War, and the Confederate Legacy
Jean V. Berlin
"Did Confederate Women Lose the War?"
In Mark Grimsley and Brooks D. Simpson eds.
The Collapse of the Confederacy (2001)
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Documents:
Melvin Smith Reminiscences
Daniel Heyward Trez evant Reminiscences
Letter from H. S. Beals to Maj. Gen. Butler
December 10, 1863
Letter from John C. Chadwick
October 3, 1863
Letter from James C. Beecher to Brig. Genl. Edward A. Wild
September 13, 1863
Letter from Joseph Howard
January 30, 1865
Essays:
Thavolia Glymph
"'This Species of Property': Female Slave Contrabands in the Civil War"
In Edward D. C. Campbell, Jr., and Kym S. Rice eds.
A Woman's War: Southern Women, Civil War, and the Confederate Legacy (1996)
Randall C. Jimerson
The Private Civil War: Popular Thought During the Sectional Conflict (1994)
Chapter three, "The Test of Slaves' Loyalty"
CHAPTER NINE: DISSENSION AND INTERNAL COLLAPSE ON THE HOMEFRONT
Documents:
Kate Cumming Diary
Letter from William Ross Stilwell to his Wife Molly
August 13, 1863
First Confederate Conscription Law
April 16, 1862
The Twenty Negro Law
Act Regulating Impressments
March 26, 1863
Parthenia Hague
A Blockaded Family
John B. Jones
A Rebel War Clerk's Diary
Essays:
Paul D. Escott
After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (1978)
Chapter Seven, "Fighting Against Disintegration"
George C. Rable
The Collapse of the Confederacy (2001)
Chapter, "Despair, Hope, and Delusion: The Collapse of
Confederate Morale Reexamined"
CHAPTER TEN: A STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL, MILITARY EVENTS AND ISSUES,
1863-1865
Documents:
Diary of Chaplain Thomas H. Deavenport
Reminiscences of Sam R. Watkins
Kate Cumming Diary
Letter from Robert E. Lee to Governor Zebulon Vance
February, 1865
Governor Zebulon B. Vance Proclamation
Letter from William H. Lee to Jefferson Davis
May 4, 1865
Letter from John J. Cheatham to Hon. L. P. Walker
May 4, 1865
Enrollment of slaves in the Army
March 13, 1865
Farewell Address of Jefferson Davis
Essays:
Reid Mitchell
"The Confederate Soldier and the Crisis of the South"
In Civil War Soldiers: Their Expectations and Their Experiences (1988)
Gary W. Gallagher
"I Have to Make the Best of What I Have"
In Gary W. Gallagher, ed.
The Spotsylvania Campaign (1998)
CHAPTER ELEVEN: WHY DID THE CONFEDERACY FAIL?
Documents:
Robert Garlick Kean Diary
Robert E. Lee's Farewell Address to the Army of Northern Virginia
Kate Cumming Diary
Essays:
James M. McPherson
"American Victory, American Defeat"
In Gabor S. Boritt, ed.
Why the Confederacy Lost (1992)
"Why the South Lost the Civil War"
Ten Historians Analyze Confederate Defeat
Gary W. Gallagher
The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism, and
Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat (1997)
CHAPTER TWELVE: RECONSTRUCTING THE SOUTH
Documents:
Constitutional Amendments 13, 14, and 15
Louisiana Black Codes
Testimony of Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Brown, and William
Coleman before Congress
Plessy v. Ferguson Decision
Essays:
William L. Barney
Flawed Victory: A New Perspective on the Civil War
(1975)
James L. Roark
Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil
War and Reconstruction (1977)
Chapter Five, "The Soul is Fled"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: REMEMBERING THE WAR, THE LOST CAUSE AND CONFEDERATE MEMORIALIZATION
Documents:
Father Abram J. Ryan Poem
"The Conquered Banner"
Alexander H. Stephens
A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States
(1868-70)
Jefferson Davis
The Rise and Fall of Confederate Government
David Heffner, "Old South, New South Clash on Vanderbilt's Campus"
Scott Jaschik
"Confederates Defeat Vanderbilt"
Scott Jaschik
"Lost Cause at Vanderbilt"
"Lee Statue Vandalized"
"Open Season on General Lee"
Pamela Denney
"Monumental Battle"
Chris Davis
"Deconstruction"
Edward T. Linenthal
"Healing and History: The Dilemmas of Interpretation"
Essays:
Gary W. Gallagher
"Jubal A. Early, the Lost Cause, and Civil War History:
A Persistent Legacy"
In Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds.
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History (2000)
John M. Coski
The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem (2005)
Biography
J.D. Fowler is Associate Professor of History at Kennesaw State University, and the author of Mountaineers in Gray: The Story of the Nineteenth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment, C.S.A.
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