Liberal Arts Faculty Books
Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation
Files
Description
By the end of the Civil War, fatalities from that conflict had far exceeded previous American experience, devastating families and communities alike. As John Neff shows, commemorating the 620,000 lives lost proved to be a persistent obstacle to the hard work of reuniting the nation, as every memorial observation compelled painful recollections of the war. Neff contends that the significance of the Civil War dead has been largely overlooked and that the literature on the war has so far failed to note how commemorations of the dead provide a means for both expressing lingering animosities and discouraging reconciliation. Commemoration—from private mourning to the often extravagant public remembrances exemplified in cemeteries, monuments, and Memorial Day observances—provided Americans the quintessential forum for engaging the wars meaning.
ISBN
9780700622597
Publication Date
4-1-2005
Relational Format
book
Department
Arch Dalrymple III Department of History
Publisher
University Press of Kansas
Disciplines
United States History
Recommended Citation
Neff, John R., "Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation" (2005). Liberal Arts Faculty Books. 119.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/libarts_book/119