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Civil War St. Louis (Modern War Studies)
written by Louis S. Gerteis
Studio : University Press of Kansas
by University Press of Kansas
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Released : 2004-10
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780700613618
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 3 reviews)
List Price : $17.95
Our Price : $11.87
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Book Description |
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In the Civil War, rough-and-tumble St. Louis played a key role as a strategic staging ground for the Union army. A citadel of free labor in a slave state, it also harbored deeply divided loyalties that mirrored those of its troubled nation. Until now, however, the fascinating story of wartime St. Louis has remained largely unchronicled. By the mid-nineteenth century, St. Louis had become the nation's greatest inland city, providing a "gateway to the West," a riverine crossroads for national commerce, and an ideal base for expansion-minded industrialists from the abolitionist Northeast. Yet as Louis Gerteis reveals, many of its citizens were staunchly dedicated to both slavery and the southern agrarian tradition. For them especially, federal martial law was an outrage, one that only served to nail the coffin shut on their loyalty to the Union. Gerteis's rich and engaging narrative encompasses a wide range of episodes and events involving the lynching of freeman Francis McIntosh and murder of publisher Elijah Lovejoy, the infamous Dred Scott saga (which began in St. Louis), city politics and martial law, battles in and around the city (at Camp Jackson, Wilson's Creek, and Pea Ridge), major river campaigns, manufacture of ironclad combat ships, prison camps and hospitals, and efforts to secure civil rights for blacks while denying the same to former Confederates who would not swear loyalty to the Union. Featuring famous figures like Thomas Hart Benton, John C. Fremont, Claiborne Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Sterling Price, Gerteis's study also sheds considerable light on the participation of women and the status of blacks throughout the conflict, offering gripping images of black and white Missourians contending with the issue of emancipation. Ultimately, Gerteis presents a compelling portrait of a war-torn city--teeming with wounded soldiers, displaced civilians, runaway slaves, federal prisoners, and profiteers--that was forever changed by its wartime experiences, even as it anchored Union victory in the west. This book is part of the Modern War Studies series. |
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Expansion on History |
This book is excellent for the "fleshing out" of characters and personalities of which the preponderence of us only know by name. Dr. Gerteis creates non-fiction which reads like an unfolding panorama of events which could have only been spawned with the creativity of the human mind. But these things happened and they are the property of time. Dr. Gerteis allows us in the salon where before we had only been allowed to peek in the door.
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Well Written, New Perspectives |
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Gerteis' book is valuable to those who are interested in the intricacies of the larger Civil War and to those who are interested in the history of St. Louis. I fall into both categories and loved the book for those reasons alone. Two categories of the times about which I had read very little were the roles that women filled in during the war and how filling those roles lead to social changes after the war (like a prelude of Rosy the Riveter) and also about the role of first runaway slaves, then contraband slaves, and then African Americans of all sorts filling the cities of the border states. The details of some of the characters in history for these two moments--women's roles and integration of black into society--are ones that I will carry with me forever. Gerteis is a story-teller. He really knows how to make the material move, and it was fun just learning about the intertwining families of St. Louis and how their relationships played out in odd and sometimes violent ways. Very good writing. |
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Civil War St. Louis |
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(...) Gerteis, professor of history at University Missouri-St. Louis, has created the best single work on the subject yet produced. The breadth of this book is its greatest strength, starting with the lynching of Francis McIntosh in 1836 and ending with Reconstruction in the 1870’s. In between is the expected cast of characters like Thomas Hart Benton, Dred Scott, the Blairs, Gratz Brown, Basil Duke, Claiborne Jackson, Franz Sigel, James O. Broadhead, Sterling Price, Joseph W. Tucker, the Fremonts. . . well, you get the picture. The list could continue to impressive lengths, and does so in Prof. Gerteis’ book. Abraham Lincoln isn’t elected president (en passant at that) until page 77. Of particular pleasure was the inclusion of significant material on lesser-known, but important, figures like J.E.D. Couzins, James E. Yeatman and the Western Sanitary Commission, Rev. John Richard Anderson, and James B. Eads and the river navy. Prof. Gerteis also does an excellent job of weaving the German thread
into the Union quilt as seamlessly as it has ever been done. |
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