Focusing primarily on five young volunteers; the author tells the story of the Eighth Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserves from the Seven Days Battles to the siege of Petersburg where four of the five were captured and sent to the Confederate prison at Salisbury; North Carolina.
#699294 in Books Univ Tennessee Press 2003-08-08Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 10.00 x .90 x 8.00l; 1.95 #File Name: 1572332727296 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Look at the beautiful monuments throughout the South; here is the history; the past and the presentBy Jackie LynnThere are hundreds of outdoor sculptures and architectural memorials across the South telling of the valor and virtue of the Civil War generation. The history of many are told here. The two generations after the war errected them to come to terms with the region's defeat and the Reconstruction era following. They were built first in grief and later in celebration as history was written from the Confederate perspective. The meaning of public sculpture is not fixed; but changes with the distance of time.Covered here is what exactly was "The Lost Cause" in thought and how it manifested in the memorials. The building moved from the cemeteries to the public spaces and events were held all mostly guided by the hand of white Southern women. You see the role of women turning from keeper of the home to memorial committee member to worker for women's rights. These small circles of women raised money; approved the designs; exerted pressure on public officials; and crafted the public memory in their communities to preserve their heritage. "Contesting the Sacred" is apt to express today.The conflicting views are also covered here; ending with a chapter titled "Cntestingthe Sacred"3 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Somethings Lost from the "Monuments To The Lost Cause"By Walter D. Teague"The Lost Cause" of the Confederacy and the effort to revitalize the Confederate historical memory by imposing monuments in cities and towns throughout the US was much more aggressive and connected to related issues of segregation; the KKK and other racist causes. This book covers many of those monumental efforts and the politics associated; but it is weak in describing the Monuments Movement's basic purpose of strengthening and maintaining White Power.A revealing example by omission is that among the hundreds of monuments detailed; it gives no mention of the monument by the Daughters of the Confederacy and championed by other racist forces and placed in Harpers Ferry in tribute to the "Negros" "loyal" to the Confederacy. This monument on Federal Park land remained controversial for many years and involved major struggles. Just Google "Heyward Shepherd Memorial" and "Healing and History: The Dilemmas of Interpretation" and you will get a sense of how important this struggle was.I suggest it is revealing of a bias that the authors of this book obviously chose to leave out this important and still existing monument. I have no idea of why this omission; but this is like doing a book on the Civil War and leaving out the fact that poor white farmers; escaped slaves and sometimes indigenous Americans joined forces and held "liberated" areas in the South during the war. Oh; that's right; in fact it is left out of all the school books I have seen.Heyward the subject of the Harpers Ferry monument was not a "loyal slave" to the Confederacy; and the effort of the Monuments Movement was no more true to history or humanity than the lies on that monument that stands today in Harpers Ferry.
