Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory

No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America's collective memory as the Civil War. In 1865, confronted with a ravaged landscape and a torn America, the North and South began a slow and painful process of reconciliation. The ensuing decades witnessed the triumph of a culture of reunion, which downplayed sectional division and emphasized the heroics of a battle between noble men of the Blue and the Gray. Nearly lost in national culture were the moral crusades over slavery that ignited the war, the presence and participation of African Americans throughout the war, and the promise of emancipation that emerged from the war. This volume is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War.