First published 2008
The Civil War killed over 600,000 Americans and transformed how the nation understood death itself. Historian Drew Gilpin Faust explores how soldiers, families, and communities grappled with unprecedented carnage that overwhelmed existing customs and beliefs. She traces how Americans developed new rituals for dying, grieving, and remembering the dead when traditional practices collapsed under the weight of industrial warfare. Faust examines letters between soldiers and loved ones, battlefield accounts, and the rise of national cemeteries to show how death became a shared national experience. The book reveals how this confrontation with mass mortality reshaped American culture, religion, and identity in ways that persist today.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction
Setting: America
Period: 19th-Century, 20th-Century
645 pages · Hardcover · Thorndike Pr
Content warnings: death