I sometimes think the American Civil War looms too large in our popular imagination. It seems to be everywhere in our current discourse about a “divided America.” Hundreds of op-eds and other commentaries reference the four-year bloody conflict in an attempt to connect our current crisis with a period in history that any sane person would wish to avoid.
Thank you for a well thought out response to David French’s article. Many people do not see secession and war as a part of the larger story of our story. That is why I do not end my book “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion and the Politics of Race in the Civil War Era and Beyond” at the close of the war or the end of Reconstruction. French does not really understand the period, or McPherson’s premise in “Battlecry of Freedom.”
Thank you for a well thought out response to David French’s article. Many people do not see secession and war as a part of the larger story of our story. That is why I do not end my book “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion and the Politics of Race in the Civil War Era and Beyond” at the close of the war or the end of Reconstruction. French does not really understand the period, or McPherson’s premise in “Battlecry of Freedom.”
The only thing I would say is we are not guaranteed this idea of America will last in perpetuity.
But I agree that "the Civil War is not the ultimate measuring rod for the health of the nation."