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The Battlefield and Beyond

Essays on the American Civil War

edited by Clayton E. Jewett

In The Battlefield and Beyond leading Civil War historians explore a tragic part of our nation’s history though the lenses of race, gender, leadership, politics, and memory. The essays in this strong collection shed new light on the defining issues of the Civil War era.

Orville Vernon Burton, Leonne M. Hudson, and Daniel E. Sutherland delve into the master-slave relationship, the role of blacks in the army, and the nature of southern violence. Herman Hattaway, Paul D. Escott, and Judith F. Gentry offer innovative perspectives on the influential leadership of President Jefferson Davis, Lieutenant-General Stephen D. Lee, and General Edmund Kirby Smith. 
 
Other contributors consider politicians and the public: Michael J. Connolly and Clayton E. Jewett investigate how despotism contributed to Confederate defeat; David E. Kyvig and Alan M. Kraut examine the war’s impact on the Constitution and racial relationships with Jews; and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Kenneth Nivison, and Emory M. Thomas discuss the critical function of memory in our understanding of Lincoln’s assassination.
 
The essays in The Battlefield and Beyond consider the fundamental issue of the Confederacy’s failure and military defeat but also expose our nation’s continuing struggles with race, individual rights, terrorism, and the economy. Collectively, this distinguished group of historians reveals that 150 years after the nation’s most defining conflict its consequences still resonate.

Clayton E. Jewett is lecturer in history at Baylor University and the author or editor of Texas in the Confederacy: An Experiment in Nation Building, Slavery in the South: A State-by-State History, and Rise and Fall of the Confederacy: The Memoir of Texas Senator Williamson S. Oldham, CSA.

Advance Praise for The Battlefield and Beyond

“An impressive range of scholarship and intellectual interests has placed Jon Wakelyn among the most productive and influential historians and teachers of his generation.  Here, Clayton Jewett and the talented group of scholars he has assembled offer studies that do justice to the breadth and depth of Wakelyn’s work by offering fresh insights, notably on the critical intersections of biography with social, military, and political history.”—Eugene D. Genovese, author of Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made

“A fascinating collection of essays celebrating the career of one of the Civil War’s leading scholars, The Battlefield and Beyond illustrates the exceedingly high quality of the current work in the field.”—Brian D. McKnight, author of Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia

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