Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 1: War
Chapter 2: The Meaning of the Civil War in Reconstruction
Chapter 3: The Generals' War
Chapter 4: The Boys from Iowa
Chapter 5: The Great Reunion
Chapter 6: A Farewell to Arms
Chapter 7: A New Deal
Epilogue
Appendix 1: Herman Lieb's Report on Milliken's Bend
Appendix 2: "The Battle of Milliken's Bend," by David Cornwell
Appendix 3: Reported Lynchings in Warren County, Mississippi
Appendix 4: State Monuments on the Vicksburg Battleground
Bibliographic essay
Christopher Waldrep is Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of American History at San Francisco State University. He is the author of many books and articles on the American South, including Roots of Disorder: Race and Criminal Justice in the American South, 1817–80 and The Many Faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal Violence and Punishment in America.
Waldrep shows how reunions, memorial days, and the establishment of
a national cemetery and the Vicksburg National Military Park kept
alive racial memories of the battle, promoting patriotism and
military heroism. . . . Highly recommended.
*Library Journal*
A fascinating analysis of how the aftermath of the Vicksburg
campaign impacted soldiers, generals, African-Americans, American
society north and south, and the city itself.
*Michael B. Ballard, author of Vicksburg: The Campaign that Opened
the Mississippi*
With unusual clarity, penetrating insight, and wry understatement,
in Vicksburg's Long Shadow Chris Waldrep unravels the how and why
of the Civil War commemorations of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Like the
best of the 'new' memory studies, Waldrep explains historical
remembrance as a function of prevailing power. White northerners,
not white southerners, generally fashioned Vicksburg's historical
landscape, all the while solidifying the federal government's
influence and power. Vicksburg's Long Shadow combines fresh primary
research and informed synthesis. Waldrep's book is an original
addition to the growing field of Civil War-era historical
memory.
*John David Smith, professor, The University of North Carolina at
Charlotte*
The only thing most people know about the issue of Civil War memory
in Vicksburg, Mississippi is that many locals refused to celebrate
July 4th for years after the War. By studying a large cast of
characters from the 1860s through the 1930s, this unique and
thoroughly researched work shows that the competing memories of the
Civil War involved African Americans fighting for emancipation, the
defiance of local whites, the strategies of generals, the
commitment of various soldiers, the issue of reconciliation, and,
finally, the irony of a federally funded park that Vicksburg’s
residents welcomed and celebrated.
*Ted Ownby, University of Mississippi*
Waldrep excels in exploring the political minefield of northern
veterans creating a park to Grant’s success in a Southern city.
Along the way, he confronts slavery’s lingering legacy of racism
and the federal government’s concession to the Lost Cause
interpretation of the war. Vicksburg’s Long Shadow teaches us much
about how national battlefield parks are created and Civil War
memories constructed.
*Dwight T. Pitcaithley, Chief Historian (retired), National Park
Service*
The artifacts uncovered for Vicksburg's Long Shadow: The Civil War
Legacy of Race and Remembrance include 633 endnotes. There are
references from the Civil War generals' memoirs . . . but many more
taken from the journals, letters, and diaries of ordinary soldiers
and civilians of Vicksburg during the war and Reconstruction era. .
. . What is clear from his findings is the warning to any culture
setting out to right another culture's wrongs: Understand the
culture and its myths, it is one thing to prevail over it
militarily. It is quite another to change its beliefs.
*The Dallas Morning News*
Memory is a hot topic in Civil War history right now, and
Vicksburg's Long Shadow makes some valuable contributions to the
genre. Waldrep's careful delineation of the ways that northerners
and the federal government shaped the southern landscape adds
nuance to our understanding of the power of the Lost Cause. At the
same time, Waldrep is careful to remind us that northern memories
of the war were often no more focused on emancipation and less
distorted than those of white southerners.
*Journal of American History*
This book, then, is both a fascinating case study that hones in on
the particular memory of a critical Civil War battle and a work of
scholarship that engages much broader concern and methodologies in
Civil War studies.
*American Historical Review*
This important study will surely serve as the standard for years to
come.
*H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online*
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