In This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust tells the story of the Civil War while revealing the way the thousands of deaths changed the United States as a whole. She presents this testimony of history by telling the eight main ways the Civil War changed the nation while including countless forms of evidence. This paper will review Faust’s historical narrative, the book’s evidence, as well as evaluating the quality of Faust’s writing throughout the book. The purpose of Drew Gilpin Faust writing this book remains incredibly clear as wanting to show the different ways the Civil War directly affected the United States’ people and government. This purpose presented by Faust is made obvious by the intelligent arguments and countless pieces of evidence to support the claims brought to the reader’s attention. All of these arguments …show more content…
Each chapter is divided up into one argument. These chapters include key pieces of information for the reader to get a better understanding about the war and the affect it had on the nation. Through evidence and accounts from people in the war, Faust shows how and why the country changed on both the government and the citizen front. For the government, the war showed them the flaws in their soldier responsibilities. Because of the war the government changed many different policies to deal with death, created national cemeteries, implemented better identification and numbering systems, as well as worked out different programs to take care of the soldier’s families. For citizens the war changed their ways of mourning, thinking of the afterlife, their views on religion, their process of burial, as well as their amount of respect each person held for the soldiers in the war. The author makes clear that without the war many of the tactics and ideals the country has in place today would not be the same without the Civil
America’s transformation into the country we live in today has been formed through numerous events during its short history but the event that will split the United States into North versus South is truly one of the most defining events in American history. Through numerous events leading up to the start of the Civil War, I will attempt to show how the United States was destined for conflict and that the Civil War was inevitable. The first way I will show how the war could not be avoided will deal with the issue of slavery. Slavery should be the first mentioned because many conflicts within the United States leading up to the Civil War and the division of the United States dealt with slavery. The Missouri Compromise should also be talked
What they fought for is an analysis of a collection of nearly a thousand personal letters and journals entries written by the soldiers who fought America’s famous Civil War. This book seeks to define the ideology of what the soldiers understood they were fighting for, and their comprehension of the outcome of their service .Although counter arguments agree that most soldiers could not give a solid explanation of why they fought for, nor the real Constitutional issues that were at stake; the thoughts the soldiers recorded show that they fought for more than just masculine identity; they highly valued being at home safe with their loved ones, at any cost. This book gives an inside perception of the Civil War, and a
The aftermath of the Civil War shook the nation. A new way of life was beginning for the people of America. A way of life that was beautiful and free to some and absolutely devastating to the rest. The country had changed and nobody did a better job at documenting this change than the authors. The authors used this new world to explore new and unique stories as well as capturing what it was actually like living in the post-Civil War times. This paper will examine post-Civil War Literature and its importance to documenting this period in history.
The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s
Split by different cultures that stemmed from the Union and Confederacy, the United States was forced to resolve such issues with a Civil War. The nineteenth century US Civil War was a battle for power and slave rights. Favoring a stronger federal government, the Union disagreed with the Confederacy’s view on slave rights and economical style. Seeing as their economy and infrastructure was heavily based on agriculture, the Confederacy would take the most impact from an abolishment of slavery and stronger federal government. These two issues alone led to the most deadliest US war to date. Often identified as “the young soldier”, Henry Fleming enlists into the army with a very romanticized view of the battlefield. Within the first three days of battle, Henry’s characterization of a courageous and brave soldier changes dramatically.
During the Civil War, there were two sides, the Confederate Army and the Union Army. While the Confederates fought for slavery, the Union fought for their freedom. While the
With the eruption of the Civil War came one of the biggest tribulations and trials that this country has ever faced, but as we understand the motives of one of the greatest Presidents in American History we can see that the Civil War was inevitable. From his original intentions of merely preserving the Union and holding the country together, to permanently abolishing slavery we can observe why prevailing in the struggle of the Civil War is one of Lincoln’s defining legacies. Thus, as the civil war draws to a close, an old tumultuous era has ended, and a new more prosperous era has
Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and The American Civil War tackles a subject that is not widely written about: the ways of death of the American Civil War generation. She demonstrates how the unprecedented carnage, both military and civilian, caused by the Civil War forever changed American assumptions of death and dying, and how the nation and its people struggled to come to terms with death on an unimaginable scale. The war created a veritable “republic of suffering” and Faust vividly portrays the United States’ ordeal, transformation, and
The era of Reconstruction was a fourteen-year period following the Civil War filled with political and constitutional strife, extreme suffering, grand political ambitions and huge turns in race relations and human rights (Blight 32). During this period, many Americans realized that remembering the war “became, with time, easier than struggling over the enduring ideas for which those battles had been fought” (Blight 31). To people such as Frederick Douglass, a reborn United States could not
During the period between the civil war’s end, and about 1914, an American literary movement occurred. This movement is known as realism for its adherence to real life, but should not be confused with naturalism. Mark Twain played a part as one of the Literary minds of this era. In his Poem “the War Prayer”, Twain shows examples of realism about the townspeople, non-believers, and the negative parts of the war.
To what extent was the Civil War fought over African American freedom ? What were political issues that dominated U.S. politics in the 1850’s ? What factors led to the split of political parties leading up to the war ? What major events heightened sectional conflicts ? What political wartime strategies did both sides use to win the war ? These are some points and questions that will be discussed in this paper. These questions will be answered to find out why the civil war was fought
After thoroughly assessing past readings and additional research on the Civil War between the North and South, it was quite apparent that the war was inevitable. Opposed views on this would have probably argued that slavery was the only reason for the Civil War. Therefore suggesting it could have been avoided if a resolution was reached on the issue of slavery. Although there is accuracy in stating slavery led to the war, it wasn’t the only factor. Along with slavery, political issues with territorial expansion, there were also economic and social differences between North and South. These differences, being more than just one or two, gradually led to a war that was bound to happened one way or another.
The purpose of this paper is to show the events surrounding the end of the American Civil War. The two sides which were at war was the union and the confederacy. Which was basically the United States separated into 2 sections going at war with each other. In this document, I will speak about those people who were involved on the battlefield towards the end of the war.
In the later half of nineteenth century America, the new nation’s original ability to resolve conflict through means of peaceful compromise had vanished. Various spans of conflict such as Westward Expansion, the Market Revolution, Sectionalism, Mexican American War, the succession of the southern states and ultimately the failure of the Compromise of 1850 that made compromise between the North and the South unattainable. It was the uncompromising differences amongst the free and slave states over the power of the national government that created a divide that would result in divisional violence. From the industrialized North, the agricultural South, Jackson’s Presidency to Lincoln’s and the rise in America 's involvement in politics that followed, slavery was merely one pawn on the board during America’s transforming years that would later reveal itself to have been the vehicle for the Civil War.
The effects of the Civil War brought about changes in the United States. The country had to answer the question: To what level of moral and ethical conduct do we want Americans to be held? Loyalties were seriously evaluated. People had to decide if they held their loyalty to the country as a whole, their state, their families, or even to humanity as a whole. They had to decide if it was right to own another person, or if the slavery system was justified as a way to keep the Southern economy going. Through all this contemplation, people wrote about their thoughts and fears, and as a result, people abandoned romanticism and became realists. Many writings of the Civil War, whether informational or literary, reflect