Introduction xiii

PART ONE: "THEY BREAK THE LINKS OF UNION" I

1. Writers and Politics 4
Taking Sides
The Fallen Angel and the Risen Saint
2. The 'Wholesome Calamity" 14
William Gilmore Simms and Southern
Wrongs
George Templeton Strong-Reluctant
Abolitionist
Yankee Literati and the "Holy War"-Dr. Holmes
James Russell Lowell-Agitator-Conservator
Emerson Goes to War

PART TWO: A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE
WHOLE AFFAIR 39

3. Hawthorne: Lonely Dissenter 41
Neutralist
Chiefly About War Matters
The Terrible Allegory
4. Whitman: The "Parturition Years" 56
Sounding the Tocsin
Blacks and Abolitionists
"Deaths, Operations, Sickening Wounds"



War-"The Real Article"
"Lincoln's Man"
The Convulsive Years
5. Melville: The Conflict of Convictions 75
Melville and Whitman
Battle-Pieces as a War Narrative
"Through Terror and Pity"
Prophecies and Misgivings

PART THREE: THE "MALINGERERS" 9I

6. Henry Adams 93
The Young Strategist
Qualms and Indecisions
The House of Adams Victorious
Prospects and Portents
The Unwanted Man
7. Henry James Io6
The Wound
Father and Sons
"The Consecrating Sentiment"
"A Poor Worm of Peace"
The Blighted South
8. William Dean Howells I2I
The Inglorious Assignment
Rediscovering the Enemy
The War Assessed
Literary Consequences
9. Mark Twain I33
The Comic Mask
Mark Twain's "Campaign"
Huck and Tom
The Fable of Catastrophe


PART FOUR: DRAWING-ROOM WARRIORS AND COMBATANTS 147

10. Gentlemen of Peace and War I49
The "Elevated" View-Stedman, Taylor & Co.



War Poets on Sea and Land-H. H. Brownell
and N. S. Shaler
Gentlemen-Soldiers-Captain O. W. Holmes,
Jr., and Others
11. John W. De Forest I64
A Volunteer's Adventures
Whites and Blacks in Pre-War Dixie
The War in Document and Fiction
The Recorders-Trashy and True
12. Ambrose Bierce I8I
"Salad Days"
War Internalized
The Volunteer Remembers
Soldiers v. Civilians
"A Land of Peace and Pensions"
13. Albion W. Tourgee I93
Carpetbagger
Soldier
Tourgee in Fact and Fiction
Tourgee's "History"
Racism and the Future


PART FIVE: THE WAR AT SECOND HAND 207

14. Stephen Crane and Harold Frederic 210
Recruits and Veterans
Henry Fleming's "Conversion"
Mutual Admirers
The War in Dearborn County
Copperheads and Deserters
A Dissenting Voice


PART SIX: THE SOUTH: ONLOOKERS AND
PARTICIPANTS 227

15. Writers in the Confederacy 229
South Carolina Quixote
The Promised Renascence



Timrod's War
Launching the Legend
16. The Unwritten Novel 244
Cooke's Cavaliers
Richard Taylor-Ironist
David Hunter Strother-Realist
Mrs. Chesnut's South
Mrs. Chesnut Maps a Story
Mrs. Chesnut's Unfinished "Novel"
17. Sidney Lanier 263
The Great Wind
Tiger-Lilies and the Allegory of War
18. George Washington Cable 272
The Un-Southern Confederate
Cable on the "Lost Cause"
The Grandissimes


PART SEVEN: RECONSTRUCTING THE SOUTHERN PAST 283

19. The Neo-Confederates 285
"A Holy Conviction Makes a Holy Cause"
A Stand for Dixie
Uses of the Past
Biographical Narratives
Allen Tate and the Novel as History
The Meditations of Robert Penn Warren
20. William Faulkner 310
Faulkner and Agrarians
Licensed Chronicler
Legend-Makers (Men)
Legend-Makers (Women)
The Truths of Fantasy

Conclusion "Such Was the War" 327
Supplement 1 The War Prefigured 343
Supplement 2 Lincoln and the Writers 349



Supplement 3 A Further Note on the "Collegians" 353
Supplement 4 Emily Dickinson's "Private Campaign" 355
Notes (with a Key to Abbreviations Frequently Cited) 359
Acknowledgments 387
Index follows page 387