North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction / Edition 1

by Paul D. Escott

Overview

Although North Carolina was a "home front" state rather than a battlefield state for most of the Civil War, it was heavily involved in the Confederate war effort and experienced many conflicts as a result. North Carolinians were divided over the issue of secession, and changes in race and gender relations brought new controversy. Blacks fought for freedom, women sought greater independence, and their aspirations for change stimulated fierce resistance from more privileged groups. Republicans and Democrats fought over power during Reconstruction and for decades thereafter disagreed over the meaning of the war and Reconstruction.

With contributions by well-known historians as well as talented younger scholars, this volume offers new insights into all the key issues of the Civil War era that played out in pronounced ways in the Tar Heel State. In nine essays composed specifically for this volume, contributors address themes such as ambivalent whites, freed blacks, the political establishment, racial hopes and fears, postwar ideology, and North Carolina women. These issues of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras were so powerful that they continue to agitate North Carolinians today.

Contributors:
David Brown, Manchester University
Judkin Browning, Appalachian State University
Laura F. Edwards, Duke University
Paul D. Escott, Wake Forest University
John C. Inscoe, University of Georgia
Chandra Manning, Georgetown University
Barton A. Myers, University of Georgia
Steven E. Nash, University of Georgia
Paul Yandle, West Virginia University
Karin Zipf, East Carolina University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807859018
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	10/01/2008
Edition description:	1
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Paul D. Escott is Reynolds Professor of American History and former dean at Wake Forest University. He is author or editor of thirteen books, including Slavery Remembered: A Record of Twentieth-Century Slave Narratives and Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900 (both from the University of North Carolina Press).

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

North Carolinian Ambivalence: Rethinking Loyalty and Disaffection in the Civil War Piedmont
David Brown
A More Rigorous Style of Warfare: Wild's Raid, Guerrilla Violence, and Negotiated Neutrality in Northeastern North Carolina
Barton A. Myers
Visions of Freedom and Civilization Opening before Them: African Americans Search for Autonomy during Military Occupation in North Carolina
Judkin Browning
The Order of Nature Would Be Reversed: Soldiers, Slavery, and the North Carolina Gubernatorial Election of 1864
Chandra Manning
To Do Justice to North Carolina: The War's End according to Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Zebulon B. Vance, and David L. Swain
John C. Inscoe
Reconstruction and North Carolina Women's Tangled History with Law and Governance
Laura F. Edwards
No Longer under Cover(ture): Marriage, Divorce, and Gender in the 1868 Constitutional Convention
Karin Zipf
Different Colored Currents of the Sea: Reconstruction North Carolina, Mutuality, and the Political Roots of Jim Crow, 1872-1875
Paul Yandle
The Immortal Vance: The Political Commemoration of North Carolina's War Governor
Steven E. Nash

Contributors Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This collection of essays is a valuable addition to the study of North Carolina during a period of revolutionary change. Paul Escott has enlisted an impressive group of mature and new scholars who explore a variety of pathbreaking and classic topics that tell us more than we ever knew about the years between 1860 and 1900. I learned something new and intriguing from every contribution—including some articles that covered topics that I had researched myself. It is a pleasure to recommend this well-written volume to specialists and interested lay readers alike.—Gordon McKinney, author of Zeb Vance: North Carolina's Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader



This volume very effectively shows how North Carolinians fought amongst themselves—over land, labor, family, and control of the state government—as well as against the Yankees during the Civil War. Contributors also demonstrate in fascinating detail how, after the war ended, those conflicts continued to play out in local courts and voting booths until powerful whites developed a new Confederate culture that subsumed and eventually buried all opposition to the rule of white Democrats. In doing so, they destroyed for generations any hopes poor whites and freedpeople in North Carolina had entertained for political equality and economic equity. I can see J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton spinning in his grave now.—Wayne K. Durrill, University of Cincinnati

Editorial Reviews

Exceptional among the countless edited collections of Civil War scholarship because it achieves what every collection editor strives for: consistently strong essays that illuminate developments on the local level while contributing to broader historiographical debates in meaningful ways.—Civil War History



Contributors provide a number of interesting windows on North Carolinians' experiences during the Civil War. . . . The quality of the research and writing make this collection a welcome addition to the literature.—Journal of Southern History

From the Publisher