The Blue, the Gray, and the Green: Toward an Environmental History of the Civil War

by Brian Allen Drake (Editor), Lisa M. Brady (Contribution by), John C. Inscoe (Contribution by), Kathryn J. Shively (Contribution by), Megan Kate Nelson (Contribution by)

Overview

The Blue, the Gray, and the Green is one of only a handful of books to apply an environmental history approach to the Civil War. This book explores how nature—disease, climate, flora and fauna, and other factors—affected the war and also how the war shaped Americans’ perceptions, understanding, and use of nature. The contributors use a wide range of approaches that serve as a valuable template for future environmental histories of the conflict.

In his introduction, Brian Allen Drake describes the sparse body of environmental history literature related to the Civil War and lays out a blueprint for the theoretical basis of each essay. Kenneth W. Noe emphasizes climate and its effects on agricultural output and the battlefield; Timothy Silver explores the role of disease among troops and animals; Megan Kate Nelson examines aridity and Union defeat in 1861 New Mexico; Kathryn Shively Meier investigates soldiers’ responses to disease in the Peninsula Campaign; Aaron Sachs, John C. Inscoe, and Lisa M. Brady examine philosophical and ideological perspectives on nature before, during, and after the war; Drew Swanson discusses the war’s role in production and landscape change in piedmont tobacco country; Mart A. Stewart muses on the importance of environmental knowledge and experience for soldiers, civilians, and slaves; Timothy Johnson elucidates the ecological underpinnings of debt peonage during Reconstruction; finally, Paul S. Sutter speculates on the future of Civil War environmental studies.

The Blue, the Gray, and the Green provides a provocative environmental commentary that enriches our understanding of the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820347158
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	01/15/2015
Series:	UnCivil Wars Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	693,187
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 6.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

LISA M. BRADY is an associate professor of history at Boise State University. She is the associate editor for the journal Environmental History.

JOHN C. INSCOE is a professor of history emeritus at the University of Georgia and the founding editor of the New Georgia Encyclopedia. He is coauthor of The Heart of Confederate Appalachia.

MEGAN KATE NELSON is a writer, historian, and cultural critic. Based in Lincoln, Massachusetts, she has written about Civil War and western history for a number of national publications. Nelson also writes a regular column on Civil War popular culture, “Stereoscope,” for Civil War Monitor, and her blog, Historista examines the “surprising and weird ways that people engage with history in everyday life.” Nelson is also the author of Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (Georgia). She has taught at Texas Tech University; California State University, Fullerton; Harvard University; and Brown University.

MART A. STEWART is a professor of history and Affiliate Professor, Huxley College of Environmental Studies, at Western Washington University.

PAUL S. SUTTER is an associate professor of history at University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement.

DREW A. SWANSON is assistant professor of history at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He has previously taught at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia.

BRIAN ALLEN DRAKE is a lecturer of history at the University of Georgia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction. New Fields of Battle: Nature, Environmental History, and the Civil War Brian Allen Drake 1

1 Fateful Lightning: The Significance of Weather and Climate to Civil War History Kenneth W. Noe 16

2 "The Difficulties and Seductions of the Desert": Landscapes of War in 1861 New Mexico Megan Kate Nelson 34

3 Yancey County Goes to War: A Case Study of People and Nature on Home Front and Battlefield, 1861-1865 Timothy Silver 52

4 "The Man Who Has Nothing to Lose": Environmental Impacts on Civil War Straggling in 1862 Virginia Kathryn Shively Meier 67

5 Stumps in the Wilderness Aaron Sachs 96

6 "The Strength of the Hills": Representations of Appalachian Wilderness as Civil War Refuge John C. Inscoe 113

7 Nature as Friction: Integrating Clausewitz into Environmental Histories of the Civil War Lisa M. Brady 144

8 War Is Hell, So Have a Chew: The Persistence of Agro environmental Ideas in the Civil War Piedmont Drew A. Swanson 163

9 Reconstructing the Soil: Emancipation and the Roots of Chemical-Dependent Agriculture in America Timothy Johnson 191

10 Walking, Running, and Marching into an Environmental History of the Civil War Mart A. Stewart 209

Epilogue: "Waving the Muddy Shirt" Paul S. Sutter 225

Contributors 237

Index 241

Editorial Reviews

Although the book is not intended to serve as a comprehensive environmental history of the Civil War, it has firmly set itself as the new starting point for scholars who wish to add their own interpretations to what promises to be a thriving and important field of Civil War studies. Any serious scholar of American environmental history or the Civil War must come to terms with both the answers and, more importantly, questions offered by this outstanding volume.

Environmental History - Matthew M. Stith

For Civil War enthusiasts, scholars, and students in any field, these essays demonstrate what historians discover when they bring their keen eyes, experience, and curiosity to places outside their usual stomping grounds. These varied questions and methods of these scholars offer southern historians well-crafted vignettes about various wartime landscapes and communities, including mountains, battlefields, cotton fields, Piedmont tobacco barns, muddy roads, dense second-growth forests, cemeteries, and even deserts.

Journal of Southern History - Kathryn Morse

“A valuable collection of essays by an all-star lineup of scholars, this volume will make an important contribution to environmental history and Civil War history. I know of no other collection that explores so deeply and creatively the intersection of these two fields. This pathbreaking book is imaginative, probing, insightful, and full of surprises. It is certain to intrigue environmental and Civil War historians alike and certain to prompt even more inquiry into the event that, more than any other, has defined the history of the United States.”—Mark Fiege, coauthor of Republic of Nature

From the Publisher

A valuable collection of essays by an all-star lineup of scholars, this volume will make an important contribution to environmental history and Civil War history. I know of no other collection that explores so deeply and creatively the intersection of these two fields. This pathbreaking book is imaginative, probing, insightful, and full of surprises. It is certain to intrigue environmental and Civil War historians alike and certain to prompt even more inquiry into the event that, more than any other, has defined the history of the United States.

co-author of Republic of Nature - Mark Fiege

If Civil War historians want to discover how participants in the past perceived a war fought outdoors, it is past time to immerse Civil War history in nature. Ranging from localized, heavily empirical analysis to broad and imaginative explanations of cultural changes, these essays are a starting point for doing just that.

The Civil War Monitor - Evan A. Kutzler

The creatively titled book The Blue, the Gray, and the Green is one of the most exciting collections of scholarship I have read in quite some time. Promising to improve our understanding of the Civil War with insights from environmental history, the authors break new ground and offer tantalizing suggestions for future scholarship. The twelve scholars have succeeded in crafting a work that should be required reading for graduate students and all those interested in expanding the boundaries of Civil War historiography.

Agricultural History - Adam W. Dean

The Blue, the Gray, and the Green is the fourth installment in the UnCivil War Series from the University of Georgia Press, which investigates the Civil War in unconventional and fresh ways. Drake’s work is something the subfield of military history should embrace fully, because at times studies on the topic of war can feel ancient. These ten wonderful chapters help re-think the Civil War, bringing the reader not only the minds of great leaders and individual soldiers, but their environment as well.

Civil War Book Review - Theresa L. Young

This collection of essays successfully demonstrates a need for Civil War environmental history and will appeal to Civil War, environmental, and military historians alike.

H-Net Reviews - Lindsey Peterson

The scholarship throughout this anthology is both rigorous and innovative. The essays invite students of the American Civil War to consider the relevant environmental conditions that shaped the daily lives of those who fought it.

Michigan War Studies Review - Gregory J. Dehler