To live and die : collected stories of the Civil War stories, 1861-1876

Even before the first cannonballs were fired at Fort Sumter, American writers were trying to make creative sense of the War Between the States. These thirty-one stories were culled from hundreds that circulated in popular magazines between 1861 and the celebration of the American centennial in 1876. Arranged to echo the sequence of the unfolding drama of the war and Reconstruction, together these short stories constitute an “inadvertent novel,” a collective narrative about a domestic crisis that was still ongoing as the stories were being written and published. The authors, who include Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain, depict the horrors of the battlefield, the suffering in prison camps and field hospitals, and the privations of the home front. In these pages, bushwhackers carry the war to out-of-the-way homesteads, spies work households from the inside, journeying paymasters rely on the kindness of border women, and soldiers turn out to be girls. The stories are populated with nurses, officers, speculators, preachers, slaves, and black troops, and they take place in cities, along the frontier, and on battlefields from Shiloh to Gettysburg. The book opens with a prewar vigilante attack on the Underground Railroad and a Kansas parson in Henry King’s “The Cabin at Pharoah’s Ford” and concludes with an ex-slave recalling the loss of her remaining son in Twain’s “A True Story.” In between are stories written by both women and men that were published in magazines from the South and West as well as the culturally dominant Northeast. Wartime wood engravings highlight the text. Kathleen Diffley’s introduction provides literary and historical background, and her commentary introduces readers to magazine authors as well as the deepening disruptions of a country at war. Just as they did for nineteenth-century readers, these stories will bring the war home to contemporary readers, giving shape to a crisis that rocked the nation then and continues to haunt it now. Diffley Has Compiled A Fascinating Collection Of Periodical Fiction Published During The Civil War And Reconstruction. All Of The Stories Are Set During The War Except Samuel Clemens' Piece, Which Appeared In Atlantic Monthly And Focused On The War's Aftermath. Each Story Is Briefly Introduced And Framed Within The War. The Majority Of Selections Come From 19th-century Literary Periodicals Published In The North, South, And West. They Are Uniformly Strong And Demonstrate How Intertwined The Home And War Fronts Were. Daily Emergency: Civil War Stories Of The War Generation -- Time Line -- Prelude. The Cabin At Pharaoh's Ford / Henry King -- 1861. Job And The Bug / Chauncey Hickox -- A True And Simple Tale Of '61 / Izilda -- Ellen / Rebecca Harding Davis -- 1862. Hopeful Tackett--his Mark / Richmond Wolcott -- Thomas Elliott's Speculations / Fred B. Perkins -- Mrs. F.'s Waiting Maid / Nora Perry -- Believe In Ghosts! -- The Sergeant's Little Story / William H. Kemper -- On The Antietam -- A Letter From The Country / Charity Grimes -- T.j.'s Cavalry Charge / Confederate Gray -- 1863. Colonel Charley's Wife -- The Fourteenth At Gettysburg -- Lee At Gettysburg / J.d. Imboden -- Three Days Of Terror / Ellen D. Larned (ellen Leonard) -- The Brothers / Louisa May Alcott -- The Case Of George Dedlow / Silas Weir Mitchell -- Robbed Of Half A Million / J.o. Culver -- In The 'libey' -- Mr. Williamson Slippey And His Salt / Richard Malcolm Johnston (philemon Perch) -- 1864. A Night On The Mississippi / Ross Guffin -- Mrs. Spriggins, The Neutral / G.j.a. Coulson (alcibiades Jones) -- Buried Alive -- A Night In The Wilderness -- The Freedman's Story / M. Shele De Vere -- Road-side Story -- 1865. The Skeleton In The Closet / Edward Everett Hale (j. Thomas Darragh) -- Sentenced And Shot / Richard M. Sheppard -- Wilhelmina / Constance Fenimore Woolson -- Aftermath. A True Story, Repeated Word For Word As I Heard It / Samuel Clemens (mark Twain). Kathleen Diffley, Editor. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [405]-422) And Index. Annotation Even before the first cannonballs were fired at Fort Sumter, American writers were trying to make creative sense of the War Between the States. These thirty-one stories were culled from hundreds that circulated in popular magazines between 1861 and the celebration of the American centennial in 1876. Arranged to echo the sequence of the unfolding drama of the war and Reconstruction, together these short stories constitute an inadvertent novel, a collective narrative about a domestic crisis that was still ongoing as the stories were being written and published.The authors, who include Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain, depict the horrors of the battlefield, the suffering in prison camps and field hospitals, and the privations of the home front. In these pages, bushwhackers carry the war to out-of-the-way homesteads, spies work households from the inside, journeying paymasters rely on the kindness of border women, and soldiers turn out to be girls. The stories are populated with nurses, officers, speculators, preachers, slaves, and black troops, and they take place in cities, along the frontier, and on battlefields from Shiloh to Gettysburg.The book opens with a prewar vigilante attack on the Underground Railroad and a Kansas parson in Henry Kings The Cabin at Pharoahs Ford and concludes with an ex-slave recalling the loss of her remaining son in Twains A True Story. In between are stories written by both women and men that were published in magazines from the South and West as well as the culturally dominant Northeast. Wartime wood engravings highlight the text. Kathleen Diffleys introduction provides literary and historical background, and her commentary introduces readers to magazine authors as well as the deepening disruptions of a country at war.Just as they did for nineteenth-century readers, these stories will bring the war home to contemporary readers, giving shape to a crisis that rocked the nation then and continues to haunt it now