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Environmental History and the American South
War upon the Land: Military Strategy and the Transformation of Southern Landscapes during the American Civil War
In this first book-length environmental history of the American Civil War, Lisa M. Brady argues that ideas about nature and the environment were central to the development and success of Union military strategy.
From the start of the war, both sides had to contend with forces of nature, even as they battled one another. Northern soldiers encountered unfamiliar landscapes in the South that suggested, to them, an uncivilized society’s failure to control nature. Under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan, the Union army increasingly targeted southern environments as the war dragged on. Whether digging canals, shooting livestock, or dramatically attempting to divert the Mississippi River, the Union aimed to assert mastery over nature by attacking the most potent aspect of southern identity and power―agriculture. Brady focuses on the siege of Vicksburg, the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, marches through Georgia and the Carolinas, and events along the Mississippi River to examine this strategy and its devastating physical and psychological impact.
Before the war, many Americans believed in the idea that nature must be conquered and subdued. Brady shows how this perception changed during the war, leading to a wider acceptance of wilderness. Connecting environmental trauma with the onset of American preservation, Brady pays particular attention to how these new ideas of wilderness can be seen in the creation of national battlefield memorial parks as unaltered spaces. Deftly combining environmental and military history with cultural studies, War upon the Land elucidates an intriguing, largely unexplored side of the nation’s greatest conflict.
From the start of the war, both sides had to contend with forces of nature, even as they battled one another. Northern soldiers encountered unfamiliar landscapes in the South that suggested, to them, an uncivilized society’s failure to control nature. Under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan, the Union army increasingly targeted southern environments as the war dragged on. Whether digging canals, shooting livestock, or dramatically attempting to divert the Mississippi River, the Union aimed to assert mastery over nature by attacking the most potent aspect of southern identity and power―agriculture. Brady focuses on the siege of Vicksburg, the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, marches through Georgia and the Carolinas, and events along the Mississippi River to examine this strategy and its devastating physical and psychological impact.
Before the war, many Americans believed in the idea that nature must be conquered and subdued. Brady shows how this perception changed during the war, leading to a wider acceptance of wilderness. Connecting environmental trauma with the onset of American preservation, Brady pays particular attention to how these new ideas of wilderness can be seen in the creation of national battlefield memorial parks as unaltered spaces. Deftly combining environmental and military history with cultural studies, War upon the Land elucidates an intriguing, largely unexplored side of the nation’s greatest conflict.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2012
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August 5, 2013It's quite a coup to find something really new to say about the much-studied American Civil War. Lisa Brady found it by holding an environmental lens to history.
In Brady's War Upon the Land, southern landscapes are main actors, not just backdrops, in the theater of the Civil War.
Water and mud - not rebel forces - Brady says, posed the greatest challenges to Union troops as they waded unfamiliar bayous and mosquito-infested swamps. The muck constantly bogged down the wheeled artillery and supply wagons in marches through Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Generals Grant and Sherman naively overestimated the ability of their engineering-trained officers to manipulate nature to their advantage. They twice tried and failed to divert the Mississippi River away from the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg.
Much of the Civil War history focuses on the bloody battles - and rightly so. More than 620,000 soldiers and uncounted numbers of civilians died in the conflict, the deadliest in U.S history. Brady, an environmental historian at Boise State University, spotlights massive destruction of another kind.
The Union troops moved en masse - tens of thousands of soldiers. And they were under orders to consume or destroy as much cropland and livestock as they could along the way, like a plague of locusts. Brady quotes a Savannah plantation owners saying, "Young pigs were hunted down as though they were the rebels themselves."
General Sheridan accounted for everything his men appropriated or destroyed in the Shenandoah Valley. They burned 1,200 barns, took or killed 4,000 horses or mules, 10,918 beef cattle, 12,000 sheep, 15,000 hogs - the list goes on.
War Upon the Land isn't a narrative page-turner. It's a well-written piece of scholarship. As the war dragged on, Brady argues, the Union increasingly aimed to topple the Confederacy by destroying its agricultural foundation.
She makes a strong case. In his memoirs, Sherman defended his scorched earth strategy in the Shenandoah Valley, saying, "The reduction to poverty brings prayers for peace more surely and more quickly than does the destruction of human life."
The book also is a window on American attitudes toward nature at the time. Undeveloped landscapes were wastelands. Nature was to something to be conquered, not to behold.
Conservation became a vaunted idea after the Civil War. Some of the generals actually hand in the creation of the first national parks. Sherman and Grant are memorialized in Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks. They fought so hard to dominant the landscape. Perhaps it's fitting that their namesake trees are two of the largest living things on Earth.
In Brady's War Upon the Land, southern landscapes are main actors, not just backdrops, in the theater of the Civil War.
Water and mud - not rebel forces - Brady says, posed the greatest challenges to Union troops as they waded unfamiliar bayous and mosquito-infested swamps. The muck constantly bogged down the wheeled artillery and supply wagons in marches through Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Generals Grant and Sherman naively overestimated the ability of their engineering-trained officers to manipulate nature to their advantage. They twice tried and failed to divert the Mississippi River away from the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg.
Much of the Civil War history focuses on the bloody battles - and rightly so. More than 620,000 soldiers and uncounted numbers of civilians died in the conflict, the deadliest in U.S history. Brady, an environmental historian at Boise State University, spotlights massive destruction of another kind.
The Union troops moved en masse - tens of thousands of soldiers. And they were under orders to consume or destroy as much cropland and livestock as they could along the way, like a plague of locusts. Brady quotes a Savannah plantation owners saying, "Young pigs were hunted down as though they were the rebels themselves."
General Sheridan accounted for everything his men appropriated or destroyed in the Shenandoah Valley. They burned 1,200 barns, took or killed 4,000 horses or mules, 10,918 beef cattle, 12,000 sheep, 15,000 hogs - the list goes on.
War Upon the Land isn't a narrative page-turner. It's a well-written piece of scholarship. As the war dragged on, Brady argues, the Union increasingly aimed to topple the Confederacy by destroying its agricultural foundation.
She makes a strong case. In his memoirs, Sherman defended his scorched earth strategy in the Shenandoah Valley, saying, "The reduction to poverty brings prayers for peace more surely and more quickly than does the destruction of human life."
The book also is a window on American attitudes toward nature at the time. Undeveloped landscapes were wastelands. Nature was to something to be conquered, not to behold.
Conservation became a vaunted idea after the Civil War. Some of the generals actually hand in the creation of the first national parks. Sherman and Grant are memorialized in Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks. They fought so hard to dominant the landscape. Perhaps it's fitting that their namesake trees are two of the largest living things on Earth.
October 14, 2020
Brilliant examination of the role of landscape and environment in the planning and execution of Grant's Vicksburg, Sheridan's Shenandoah, and Sherman's Georgia and Carolina campaigns. And it worked!
October 13, 2020
An excellent book
I thought it excellently portrayed the environmental impact of the Civil War. However, there were several geographical errors re the Shenandoah Valley.
I thought it excellently portrayed the environmental impact of the Civil War. However, there were several geographical errors re the Shenandoah Valley.
February 18, 2021
3.5/5
February 15, 2015
A very interesting environmental perspective on Union military endeavors in the South.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews