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Civil War Impact

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The Impact of the Civil War on American Literature The Civil War inspired people to establish a literary culture for our new nation and it also affected the literature we read today. The Civil War was very traumatic. It caused over six hundred thousand American deaths. That is more than any other war in American history (Fuller). After America separated from Britain, the American people needed their own culture separate from Europe. Literature was very important in their lives back then. The American people had a longing for what citizens in places like Britain and France had (Fuller). Slavery and freedom became major topics of Civil War era literature. Writers’ work became known to be expressed as “a love of nature and a desire for …show more content…

They were all trying to become the self-proclaimed “Poet of America” (Fuller). The problem was, they were trying to recruit all of America to read their poetry, and now, their “audience is divided” (Fuller). Walt Whitman in particular was one of the poets who wrote about the war. When he found out that his brother was injured while fighting for the Union army, he traveled to see him in a hospital. From the experience of meeting all his brother’s friends, he writes one of the first Civil War poems; “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Grey and Dim” (Fuller). He also wrote in his collection of poems, “Oh Captain, My Captain”. That poem compared the winning of the Civil War by the Union to a captain and his crew on a ship (Davidson and Stoff 536). Through all these poems, the great writers tried to explain what it was like to be a “southerner, a northerner, or a slave” …show more content…

Notable stories include: Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War by Richard Taylor and War Reminisces and Stuart Cavalry Campaigns by John Singleton Mosby (Simpson). Another thing that played “a big role in the Civil War” (Strauss), was trauma. Writers such as Louisa May Alcott and Herman Melville made trauma from the Civil War a big part of their writings. Through this, they “tried to give their characters uniqueness and individuality” (Strauss). They strive to tell the truth in their work, but the truth becomes a “horrifying reality” (Strauss).
Besides freedom and war stories, the other major topic of Civil War era literature was slavery. Probably the most famous and well-known of all the novels about slavery is Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. She recalls of writing the story, saying “God wrote through her” (Fuller). Uncle Tom’s Cabin “helped Americans decide the kind of country they wanted to live in” (Impact of Uncle Tom).
Harriet became a world-wide celebrity after the release of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She traveled to England to meet with British women who “begged their American sisters to end slavery” (Impact of Uncle

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