US Civil War

The Dominance of Reconciliation over Race in Public Memory in Race and Reunion : The Civil War in American Memory

The public memory of the American Civil War developed and changed drastically over the fifty-year period from 1863 to 1915 . In his book Race and Reunion : The Civil War in American Memory , David W . Blight demonstrates how reconciliation and white supremacist views came to dominate the emancipationist vision in popular culture and politics , and how this led to the country turning its back on the war 's noble achievement of freedom for African

Americans

David W . Blight details several historical events that show how reunion came to dominate the issue of race in public memory of the Civil War . He begins by exploring how reactions to the carnage and loss of life involved in this incredibly bloody war steered public memory almost immediately towards a focus on reconciliation over emancipation Although Lincoln , Frederick Douglas and others stressed the value of human equality and the emancipation of slaves , such as Walt Whitman responded to the nightmare of the dead and injured by focusing on the need for reunion rather than the implications of emancipation

Reconstruction continued to emphasize reconciliation between the North and the South in the mind of the public , even as it dealt directly with issues resulting from emancipation . As in 1863 , the public to remember the war in memorialization services and to forget the fundamental reason why the war was fought . They remembering "Homeric tales of...