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In Drew Faust’s book, she assigns authority to all aspects of death during and after the Civil War. She points out that war about union, citizenship, freedom and human dignity required a transformation of the federal government. Arguing that it takes equally as much ‘work,’ effort and impact, to deal with death as it does to create and fighting wars. She continues to illustrate that Americans had to redefine their roles in self-identity because of the massive number of deaths caused by their own hands. It is interesting to point, all of the books read this thus far, talk about American’s fighting other cultures and the boundaries but never speak really about the aftermath of fighting and the reconcilation of death.
Agreeing aly692 that Faust redefines the American Civil War with this study of death. It is less focused on the actual military history of it and paints the faces and lives that were involved through the Civil War. The soldiers and supports become more than just a part of the battle. They are given a humanity normally not covered in Civil War books and poor sappy movies, that don’t quite get the picture (I think one of the modern movies getting assigning authority is Glory, and I cannot get through that movie without bawling my eyes out).
The least talked about chapter so far in the postings is chapter 6 Believing and Doubting. Faust takes her argument and reconciling. Death required meaning, and to cope with new identities. Before I proceed, these new ‘widow’ identities given to wives, children and the childless, locating ways to cope with their new term ‘widow’ strongly reminded me of Stephanie Camp’s assigned identities to bondswomen and bondsmen. She describes in her book that they actively sought out ways to not only resist, but would abscond with dresses, materials and sometimes, themselves, to cope with their identify as a slave. Secretly crafting and making food for late-night bondspeople parties, were equivalent to widow’s identifying with spiritualism. Chapter 6 discusses the sudden rise again in spiritualism after the Civil War. After the first wave of spiritualism, it was its ideologies that were directly connected to dealing with their new identity. Traditional religious arguments did not allow people to reconcile the loss of their loved one. The idea that rejecting something a popular like Christianity, and embracing spiritualism are very powerful. People believing in heaven, even more, coming from a place of a reunion was a change in American’s assignment to death. Living just beyond the veil, allowed widows to believe that this plight and assignment is life, was only a temporary way of being. Spiritualism and the idea of consoling a widow by telling them that their loved one died on the principles of ars moriendi, the good death, provided ways for people to reconcile post-Civil War death. Faust also connects the North and South, like Beckert/Rockman, by comparing death to industrialization. “northerners and southern lie mingled together, “fame or country least their care.”” (page 202). Both the idea of industrialization/to raw cotton to death/to speechlessness undoubtedly tied the states together.