Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil WarFinalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History An acclaimed, groundbreaking, and “powerful exploration” (Washington Post) of the fate of Union veterans, who won the war but couldn’t bear the peace. For well over a century, traditional Civil War histories have concluded in 1865, with a bitterly won peace and Union soldiers returning triumphantly home. In a landmark work that challenges sterilized portraits accepted for generations, Civil War historian Brian Matthew Jordan creates an entirely new narrative. These veterans— tending rotting wounds, battling alcoholism, campaigning for paltry pensions— tragically realized that they stood as unwelcome reminders to a new America eager to heal, forget, and embrace the freewheeling bounty of the Gilded Age. Mining previously untapped archives, Jordan uncovers anguished letters and diaries, essays by amputees, and gruesome medical reports, all deeply revealing of the American psyche.In the model of twenty-first-century histories like Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering or Maya Jasanoff ’s Liberty’s Exiles that illuminate the plight of the common man, Marching Home makes almost unbearably personal the rage and regret of Union veterans. Their untold stories are critically relevant today. |
Contents
Stranger at the Gates | |
Ithaca at Last | |
Living Monuments | |
Captive Memories | |
This Degradation of Souls | |
Parade Rest | |
Illustrations | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Image Credits | |
Other editions - View all
Marching Home: Union Veterans And Their Unending Civil War Brian Matthew Jordan No preview available - 2015 |
Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War Brian Matthew Jordan No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
40th Congress Albert Woolson American Civil War amputees Andersonville Andersonville Prison Archives Association August battle Battle of Gettysburg battlefield Boston Bruce Catton Chapel Hill Charles Chicago Civil War Letters Collection Colyer comrades Confederate Connecticut contest entry County Daily Dayton diary entry Disabled Volunteer Soldiers empty sleeve ExPrisoners exsoldiers Files of Members Folder George Gettysburg Grover Cleveland Hampshire Henry Historical Society History Home for Disabled Illinois inmates Iowa James John July June Kansas Lucius Fairchild Manuscript Division March Massachusetts Memory Military Milwaukee MinnHS NARA National Asylum National Home National Tribune newspaper NHDVS North Carolina Press Ohio Pennsylvania Pension File Philadelphia Philadelphia Inquirer Post Printers quoted Rebellion Records Regiment Report Republic Reunion Robert Underwood Johnson Sailors Sample Case Files September Soldier’s Friend Stanley Mead Survivors Thomas Togus Union Army Union soldiers Union veterans University of North University Press Volunteer Infantry war’s Washington William Wisconsin WOB Papers wounded York