Seasons of War: The Ordeal of the Confederate Community, 1861-1865 - Hardcover

Sutherland, Daniel E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0028740432 ISBN 13: 9780028740430

Publisher: The Free Press, 1995

Synopsis

The story of Culpeper County, Virginia, is a unique one in Civil War history. Nestled in one of the South's most strategically important locations, it was occupied by the Northern army, recaptured by the Confederacy, and finally ceded to the North. Told largely through the diaries, papers, and correspondence of residents, common infantrymen, and such eminent personalities as Robert E. Lee, Walt Whitman, Ulysses S. Grant, Clara Barton, and Stonewall Jackson, all of whom spent time in Culpeper, this story wonderfully captures both the intimacy and grandeur of war.
Sutherland's account of the war is unlike any other. Both a military and a social history, it details the life of a single Confederate community without losing sight of the titanic struggle of a nation divided. It allows readers to join the councils of Lee and Grant while sharing the letters of young couples separated by war. We frolic with the fun-loving Jeb Stuart, experience the confused terror of men in battle, feel the anguish of civilians surrounded by contending armies, observe the tensions between neighbors with different loyalties, and sense the joy of liberated slaves.

About this title

About the Author:

Daniel E. Sutherland is chairman of the department of history at the University of Arkansas.

From Publishers Weekly:

Sutherland, professor of history at the University of Arkansas, tells the story of the Civil War from the perspective of a single community. Virginia's Culpepper County was never the site of a major battle. Located between the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers, it was, however, a focal point for both armies between 1861 and 1865. Occupied repeatedly by the Union, it remained strongly Confederate in its sympathies. Sutherland's use of the present tense highlights the county's sustaining of a complex racial, social and economic structure despite externally imposed conscription, taxes, requisitions and confiscations. As armies marched, life went on. Property changed hands. Marriages were solemnized and dissolved. Men went to war. Some died. Some returned?with or without government sanction. Even for communities directly in its path, the book suggests, the Civil War was a good deal less than a total war. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Free Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0028740432
• ISBN 13: 9780028740430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496