| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation. By John R. Neff. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. xiv, 328 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-7006-1366-8.)

It has become commonplace for historians to pronounce the Civil War memory genre as played out. Nothing could be further from the truth, as John R. Neff's Honoring the Civil War Dead demonstrates so well. Neff's cultural study of the profound social consequences of the deaths of 625,000 young men challenges the current scholarly consensus portraying northern compliance with a postwar ideology that emphasized the courage of both sides. In that consensus scenario, loyalty to the Union cause sank while adherence to the Lost Cause rose. As the war's bitterness receded, the Union's righteous ideals, including emancipation, were increasingly elided or downplayed at such venues as Memorial Day ceremonies and battlefield reunions.

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