Final Resting Places
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Final Resting Places

Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves

Edited by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White

Foreword by David W. Blight

Title Details

Pages: 384

Illustrations: 113 color images

Trim size: 7.000in x 10.000in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 09/01/2023

ISBN: 9-780-8203-6456-8

List Price: $34.95

Hardcover

Pub Date: 09/01/2023

ISBN: 9-780-8203-6455-1

List Price: $114.95

eBook

Pub Date: 09/01/2023

ISBN: 9-780-8203-6457-5

List Price: $34.95

eBook

Pub Date: 09/01/2023

ISBN: 9-780-8203-6458-2

List Price: $34.95

Final Resting Places

Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves

Edited by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White

Foreword by David W. Blight

A collection of essays that examine how we have memorialized the Civil War

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  • Description
  • Reviews
  • Contributors

Final Resting Places brings together some of the most important and innovative scholars of the Civil War era to reflect on what death and memorialization meant to the Civil War generation—and how those meanings still influence Americans today.

In each essay, a noted historian explores a different type of gravesite—including large marble temples, unmarked graves beneath the waves, makeshift markers on battlefields, mass graves on hillsides, neat rows of military headstones, university graveyards, tombs without bodies, and small family plots. Each burial place tells a unique story of how someone lived and died; how they were mourned and remembered. Together, they help us reckon with the most tragic period of American history.

CONTRUBUTORS: Terry Alford, Melodie Andrews, Edward L. Ayers, DeAnne Blanton, Michael Burlingame, Katherine Reynolds Chaddock, John M. Coski, William C. Davis, Douglas R. Egerton, Stephen D. Engle, Barbara Gannon, Michael P. Gray, Hilary Green, Allen C. Guelzo, Anna Gibson Holloway, Vitor Izecksohn, Caroline E. Janney, Michelle A. Krowl, Glenn W. LaFantasie, Jennifer M. Murray, Barton A. Myers, Timothy J. Orr, Christopher Phillips, Mark S. Schantz, Dana B. Shoaf, Walter Stahr, Michael Vorenberg, and Ronald C. White

Final Resting Places contains elements that certainly will surprise readers who thought they knew everything about the American Civil War. The essays deal with more than death and dying: they reveal cogent details of how people lived, strived for various goals while here on Earth, and have been remembered.

—William A. Blair, author of Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South, 1865–1914

In Final Resting Places, some of the most accomplished historians of our time reflect on the importance of the Confederate and Union cemeteries that eventually emerged and explore how monuments to the fallen have become cultural flashpoints in our struggle to come to terms with the war’s root causes and legacy. It’s the Civil War book you didn’t know you needed until you read it. . . . In Final Resting Places, we’re reminded of why it’s important to memorialize those of the fallen that we can, and how doing so contributes to our greater understanding of the war and ourselves.

—Drew Gallagher, Washington Independent Review of Books

Edward L. Ayers

William Davis

Douglas R. Egerton

Barbara Gannon

Hilary Green

Anna Gibson Holloway

Caroline E. Janney

Michelle Krowl

Barton A. Myers

Terry Alford

Melodie Andrews

Danalisa DeAnne Blanton

Michael Burlingame

John M. Coski

Michael Gray

Allen Carl Guelzo

Vitor Izecksohn

Glenn W. LaFantasie

Jennifer M. Murray

Timothy J. Orr

Chris Phillips

Mark S. Schantz

Dana Shoaf

Walter B. Stahr

Michael Vorenberg

Ronald C. White

Katherine Reynolds Chaddock

Stephen D. Engle

About the Author/Editor

Brian Matthew Jordan (Editor)
BRIAN MATTHEW JORDAN is associate professor and chairperson of history at Sam Houston State University. He is the author or editor of five books, including Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War; The War Went On: Reconsidering the Lives of Civil War Veterans; and A Thousand May Fall: An Immigrant Regiment’s Civil War.

Jonathan W. White (Editor)
JONATHAN W. WHITE is professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep and Dreams during the Civil War; Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln; and A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House.