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

Sutherland, Daniel E.

3.6

20 ratings by Goodreads

9780807123157: Seasons of War: The Ordeal of the Confederate Community, 1861-1865

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807123153 ISBN 13: 9780807123157

Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr, 1998

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Culpeper County, Virginia, was occupied by the Northern army, recaptured by the Confederacy, and finally ceded to the North in the course of the Civil War. Told largely through the diaries, papers and correspondence of residents and such personalities as Robert E. Lee and Walt Whitman, this story captures both the intimate and sweeping sides of war. photos.

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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.

From Booklist:

Sutherland's history of Culpeper County, Virginia, during the Civil War is a vivid portrait of the Confederate home front that presents a panorama of the county's entire populace--black as well as white--at war. During the war's four years, the county saw two major battles (Cedar Mountain and Brandy Station), played host to both armies and numerous raiders, lost a large number of its people to battle, starvation, disease, and "refugeeing," and, although it had been one of Virginia's more prosperous counties, became a near wasteland. Sutherland's research has been thorough; his writing is mostly in the present tense, which sometimes calls attention to itself at the expense of a narrative that hardly needs help in terms of its dramatic impact. Although seemingly a specialty item, this readable local history is highly recommended for most Civil War collections. Roland Green

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