Browse

From the first Union attack on Vicksburg in the spring of 1862 through Benjamin Grierson’s last raid through Mississippi in late 1864 and early 1865, this book traces the campaigns, fighting, and causes and effects of armed conflict in central and North Mississippi, where major campaigns were waged and fighting occurred. It discusses the key military engagements in chronological order. The book begins with a prologue covering mobilization and other events leading up to the first military action within the state’s borders. It then covers all of the major military operations, including the campaign for and siege of Vicksburg, and battles at Iuka and Corinth, Meridian, Brice’s Crossroads, and Tupelo. The colorful cast of characters includes such household names as Sherman, Grant, Pemberton, and Forrest, as well as a host of other commanders and soldiers. The book discusses at length minority troops and others glossed over or lost in studies of the Mississippi military during the war.

In The Limits of Loyalty, Jarret Ruminski examines the lives of ordinary people in Confederate Mississippi to show how military occupation and the ravages of war tested the meaning of loyalty during the American Civil War. The extent of southern loyalty to the Confederate States of America has long been a subject of historical contention that has resulted in two conflicting conclusions: southern patriotism was either strong enough to carry the Confederacy to the brink of victory or so weak that the Confederacy was doomed to crumble from internal discord. Mississippi, the home state of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, should have been a hotbed of Confederate nationalism, but the reality was more complicated. This study breaks the “weak/strong” Confederate loyalty impasse by examining how people from different backgrounds–women and men, white and black, enslaved and free, rich and poor–negotiated the shifting contours of loyalty in a state where Union occupation turned everyday activities into a potential test of patriotism. While the Confederate government demanded total national loyalty from it citizenry, this book focuses on wartime activities like swearing the Union oath, illegally trading with the Union army, and deserting from the Confederate army to show how Mississippians acted on multiple loyalties to self, family, and nation, thereby thwarting the government’s attempt to enforce nationalism at any cost. Ruminski also explores the relationship between loyalty and slavery to demonstrate how an internal war between slaves and slaveholders defined Mississippi’s social development into the twentieth century.

In 1847, in a small rural courthouse in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln represented a Kentucky slave owner named Robert Matson in his attempt to recover a runaway slave woman and her four children. Most Americans, even those with a penchant for the nation’s history, have never heard of this court case. This is no coincidence. Lincoln’s involvement in the case has troubled and bewildered most students and biographers of the “Great Emancipator.” In many assessments, the case inspires rationalizations and distortions; in others, avoidance and denial. These approaches are a disservice to the man and to those who seek to understand him. This book digs behind the myths and evasions to determine why Lincoln chose to advocate property rights grounded in a system that he claimed to abhor, and pursue the continued enslavement of five of its most vulnerable and sympathetic victims. In a careful blend of narrative and analysis, it finds the answer in the time and place that was Lincoln’s Illinois in 1847; in the laws and judicial decisions that provided the legal backdrop against which the drama of the Matson case was played out; and in the man that Lincoln was thirteen years before he became president. The discussion of Lincoln’s decision to represent Matson and the description of the trial itself take nothing at face value. The book examines primary and secondary sources for the ribbon of truth shorn of preconceptions and hollow justifications.

Collectively the documents provide answers to the still unresolved existential question of Martin Delany historiography: Who was the real Martin Delany? Conflicting answers and interpretations compete for authenticity. Was Delany militant, anti-establishment, dogmatic and uncompromising; or, was he pragmatic, utilitarian, accommodating, and open to compromise when necessary? Could Delany have been a combination of some or all of these attributes? The documents show that he was not averse to reaching out across the racial and ideological divides to explore diverse political and social reforms strategies with political opponents, including erstwhile oppressors of his race (former slaveholders). They provide clarity to, and contextualize the “dualities” and ambiguities of his life and struggles, thereby enabling enhanced and informed understanding of the essential pragmatism and utilitarian underpinnings of his thought. Delany was a complex individual who defied ideological, political, and racial compartmentalization; always driven by considerations of what his reason and conscience dictated would best serve the interests of his race; even if it meant cooperating with former political adversaries. The documents also reveal a man who could at once appear unyielding in furtherance and defense of the interests of blacks, and yet not opposed to making concessions; a utilitarian and a pragmatist who when circumstances demanded, could be politically and ideologically resolute and dogmatic. The book highlights the ideological and political twists and turns of his Civil War and Reconstruction career and how these both endeared him to, and alienated him from, constituencies on both sides of the political and racial divides.

This book examines Mississippi’s Civil War defeat by both outside and inside forces. The invading Union army dismantled the state’s political system, infrastructure, economy, and fighting capability. The state saw extensive military operations, destruction, and bloodshed within her borders. One of the most frightful and extended sieges of the war ended in a crucial Confederate defeat at Vicksburg, the capstone to a tremendous Union campaign. As Confederate forces and Mississippi became overwhelmed militarily, the populace’s morale began to crumble. Realizing that the enemy could roll unchecked over the state, civilians began to lose the will to continue the struggle. Many white Confederates chose to return to the Union rather than see continued destruction in the name of a victory that seemed ever more improbable. When the tide turned, Unionists and African Americans boldly stepped up their endeavors. The result was a state vanquished and destined to endure suffering far into its future. The book tells the story of all classes of Mississippians during the war, focusing new light on previously neglected groups such as women and African Americans. The result is a revelation of the heart of a populace facing the devastating impact of total war.

This book is the first full treatment of any secession convention to date. Studying the Mississippi convention of 1861 offers insight into how and why southern states seceded and the effects of such a breech. Based largely on primary sources, this book provides a unique insight into the broader secession movement. There was more to the secession convention than the mere act of leaving the Union, which was done only three days into the deliberations. The rest of the three-week January 1861 meeting as well as an additional week in March saw the delegates debate and pass a number of important ordinances that for a time governed the state. As seen through the eyes of the delegates themselves, with rich research into each member, this book provides a compelling overview of the entire proceeding. The effects of the convention gain the most analysis in this study, including the political processes that, after the momentous vote, morphed into unlikely alliances. Those on opposite ends of the secession question quickly formed new political allegiances in a predominantly Confederate-minded convention. These new political factions formed largely over the issues of central versus local authority, which quickly played into Confederate versus state issues during the Civil War. In addition, the author considers the lasting consequences of defeat, looking into the effect secession and war had on the delegates themselves and, by extension, their state, Mississippi.

The victory at Port Royal, South Carolina in November 1861 left the Federal government with the responsibility for some ten thousand now-masterless slaves. Lacking a sufficient policy or plan for this new reality, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase dispatched Edward Pierce to Port Royal to assess the situation. As a result, an eclectic flood of Northern reformers, missionaries, abolitionists, and educators, collectively known as the “Gideonites,” descended upon the Sea Islands, unleashing what became known as the “Port Royal Experiment.” The Port Royal Experiment: A Case Study in Development analyzes this chapter of the Civil War and Reconstruction era in the context of nation-building and development. Each of its ten chapters treats uniquely a particular aspect of the experience such as planning, economic development, and resistance, presents the case study in the context of more recent nation-building efforts in places like Bosnia, Somalia, and Afghanistan, and incorporates recent scholarship in the field. The Port Royal Experiment: A Case Study in Development is designed to appeal to a wide audience with such varied interests as the Civil War, the military, non-governmental organizations, governmental bureaucracies, African-Americans, South Carolina, and nation-building. In addition to these general themes, each case study is written to also be able to be used individually as part of an in-depth examination of a particular aspect of development. Modern readers will no doubt see that the challenges that faced the Port Royal Experiment remain relevant and their solutions remain elusive.

Your Heritage Will Still Remain details how Mississippians constructed their social identity in the aftermath of the crises that transformed the state beginning with the sectional conflict, Civil War, and Reconstruction, and finally ending in the late nineteenth century. The social identity studied in this book focuses primarily on how Mississippians thought of their place within a national context, whether as Americans, Confederates, or both. During the period in question, radical transformations within the state forced Mississippians to embrace, deny, or rethink their standing within the Union. Tracing the evolution of Mississippians’ social identity from 1850 through the end of the decade uncovers why white Mississippians felt the need to create the Lost Cause legend and shaped the way they constructed it. At the same time, black Mississippians tried to etch their place within the Union and as part of American society, yet continually faced white supremacist backlash. Your Heritage Will Still Remain offers insights into the creation of Mississippi’s Lost Cause and black social identity and how those cultural hallmarks continue to impact the state into the twenty-first century.