Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation

Littlefield History of the Civil War Era

by Caroline E. Janney

As early as 1865, survivors of the Civil War were acutely aware that people were purposefully shaping what would be remembered about the war and what would be omitted from the historical record. In Remembering the Civil War , Caroline E. Janney examines how the war generation--men and women, black and white, Unionists and Confederates--crafted and protected their memories of the nation's greatest conflict. Janney maintains that the participants never fully embraced the reconciliation so famously represented in handshakes across stone walls. Instead, both Union and Confederate veterans, and most especially their respective women's organizations, clung tenaciously to their own causes well into the twentieth century.
Janney explores the subtle yet important differences between reunion and reconciliation and argues that the Unionist and Emancipationist memories of the war never completely gave way to the story Confederates told. She challenges the idea that white northerners and southerners salved their war wounds through shared ideas about race and shows that debates about slavery often proved to be among the most powerful obstacles to reconciliation.

Genres: History, Civil War, American History, American Civil War, Nonfiction, Politics, Race

451 pages, Hardcover

First published June 3, 2013

Reviews

[William J. G. McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book. Janney looks into the years following the American Civil War and how race relations, books, veterans, and women's groups had a role in the way we remember the war.

[Marc Brueggemann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whenever you hear an American talking about, "Don't take the statue down, it's history, heritage not hate, their not racist!" Tell them to read Remembering The Civil War: Reunion And The Limits Of Reconciliation by Caroline E. Janney. This book explains why the issues of our past, Confederate statues, and Civil War memory are exploding after the death of George Floyd in 2020. This shows how the UDC (United Daughters Of The Confederacy), implemented and advanced one of the most racist, treasonus, and romanticized propaganda campaigns in the history of the United States. Reconciliation was the language used by the Lost Cause to skirt the main issue that caused the war, which is slavery. Reconciliation was a shield used by white-southerners to tell Americans to ignore Jim Crow, segregation, lynchings, and systemic racism that occurred not just in the South, but across America. And it shows also, how Union (United States) veterans, along with African-American veterans, as well as civilians to combat the lies, racism, and myths of the Lost Cause. If you want to understand why we are seeing issues of race, nation, and memory right now. Read this book!

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is not bad, it should be seen more as a starting part before reading Blight or the book The False Cause or even Dixie’s Daughters. It still should be required reading for anyone talking about the American Civil War.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic. A must read for anyone trying to understand the post war period and make sense of what we deal with today in 2020 over conflicts of CW Memory.

[kathleen kilburn]

I'm sorry there aren't more reviews of this book, only ratings.

So I promise to complete my review when I'm finished it.

I'm about a quarter-way through right now, and so far, so good.

I'm Canadian, btw, so maybe American readers will not be flipping through other sources looking for explanation of some things that I'm going to (what is "the caning of Sumner"? for example). But I can manage that.

I'm finding foundations for some American issues that have always puzzled me--the links, it seems to me, between reconstruction and the tenacity of gun ownership, just to mention one.

Could possibly, so far, have benefited from some tighter editing, re flow and coherence, but again, not a biggie.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly important look at how we have remembered the Civil War from the day ir ended and how much the narrative has changed over time.

10 blue/grey gush fests out of 10.

[Monte Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

How did the story of the Civil War get written? This book goes into detail on how both the North and the South felt about the causes of the war and what each group wanted their descendants to think about why they fought. The author does a very good job of documenting both sides arguments and discusses how the soldiers as well as the women of each worked to get their message out. I particularly liked how she summarized each section within the chapters at the end of the section so you could bring your thoughts together on that section clearly. Another good thing about the book is how it documents the stories and motives behind so many of the monuments that were built to commemorate the war. I believe the facts support the idea that for most of the 20th century the Southern view that said the war was about states' rights and not slavery along with the story of the contented slaves and caring masters became accepted for various reasons. Many Southerners worked hard to support this story and although most Americans tried to reconcile the war as a united country, underneath this public acceptance both sides still viewed the other side as wrong and never really let it go. You can still see the ideas being fought out today in the monuments and memorials disputes. The war had lasting consequences.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Similar to David Blight's work, but Janney uses the memory of Civil War veterans and women auxiliaries to make the opposite case that reconciliation was limited and did not embrace overall U.S. nationalism in ignorance of the emancipation narrative. Janney is correct in certain respects, especially with her focus on veterans, Southern women in particular, and the refusal of Northern memories of the war to forget the morality of emancipation, but she generalizes her thesis too much when she's only focusing on specific groups rather than the larger picture like Blight's work. It's a good counterargument to Blight, but limited in scope which ultimately proves his overall thesis correct.

[JH · Rating 1 out of 5]

Have you ever had an experience where you read a book and meeting the author was a bit of a let down or vice versa?

I happened to have met Dr. Janney and read this book and I can tell you that the book is exactly what you would expect of the author and the author is exactly what you would expect of the book: shallow, classist, Lost Cause apology.

[Jessica Benton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book very effectively approaches the Civil War and Reconstruction through a detailed analysis of public memory. The monuments, civic groups, and publications tell a variety of stories based on who wants what story told. There are a number of points in the book that result in ah ha moments of “oh that’s why that’s like that.”

[Pamela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some of these book are way longer than necessary.

[Emery · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there’s anything I learned from Janney, it’s that war is only the beginning of any struggle. One must win the peace, too, as they say. And if you ask Janney, it seems the Rebels lost the war and won the peace.
She argues that there are three threads to the US Civil War: Reunion (the end of conflict between the states), Reconciliation (the two sides moving on from the war as friends), and Emancipation (the end of slavery and its tie to the war).
Janney argues that the former two were achieved at the expense of the latter. Namely, white America reconciled at the expense of Black America. Janney charts the fractious process of post-war memory and the way that present needs and circumstances (war with Spain, industrialization, etc) encouraged an unholy compromise on the memory of our civil war, and why it was fought.
Very well argued, enlightening, and utterly relevant, I recommend Janney to anyone who wants to understand why the war’s memory remains such a powerful force in modern America.