The Civil War and Pop Culture

Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians of Emerging Civil War

Chris Mackowski, Jon Tracey, Chris Mackowski, Jon Tracey

• Publisher: Savas Beatie
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781611216363
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

Explore the enduring fascination of the Civil War through thought-provoking essays from the esteemed "Emerging Civil War" series to gain better understanding of the complex relationship between history and art in shaping our understanding of the war. The American Civil War left indelible marks on America's imagination, collectively and as individuals. In the century and a half since the war, musicians have written songs, writers have crafted histories and literature, and filmmakers recreated scenes from the battlefield. Beyond popular media, the battle rages on during sporting events where Civil War-inspired mascots carry on old traditions. The war erupts on tabletops and computer screens as gamers fight the old fights. Elsewhere, men and women dress in uniforms and home-spun clothes to don the mantel of people long gone. Central to "history" is the idea of "story." Civil War history remains full of stories. They inspire us, they inform us, they educate us, they entertain us. We all have our favorite books, movies, and songs. We all marvel at the spectacle of a reenactment—and flinch with startled delight when the cannons fire. But those stories can fool us, too. Entertainments can seduce us into forgetting the actual history in favor of a more romanticized version or whitewashed memory. The Civil War and Pop Culture: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War explores some of the ways people have imagined and re-imaged the war, at the tension between history and art, and how those visions have left lasting marks on American culture. This collection of essays brings together the best scholarship from Emerging Civil War's blog, symposia, and podcast—all of it revised and updated—coupled with original piece, designed to shed new light and insight on some of the most entertaining, nostalgic, and evocative connections we have to the war.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors’ Note
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Photographing Pop Culture
• Nineteenth-Century Social Media: Civil War Photography Was 150 Years Ahead of the Game
• The Confederate Flag in Popular Culture
• The Gray Ghost on TV Made Me a Civil Warrior
• Telling History vs. Making Art
• Birth of a (Lost Cause) Nation
• A Fun Civil War Movie: The General
• Gone with the Wind: Some Thoughts
• Charlton Heston’s Civil War
• Violence and Forgetting in the Crater
• Glory: Rediscovering the USCT in Popular Culture
• Reconsidering Gettysburg
• A Conversation with Gettysburg Actor Patrick Gorman (Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood)
• The Gettysburg Soundtrack
• The 2nd South Carolina String Band and the Pop Music of the Civil War
• Driving Dixie Down
• Steve Earle’s “Ben McCulloch”
• Steve Earle, “Dixieland,” and the Irresistible Charm of Buster Kilrain
• Dwight Yoakam Sings “Dixie”
• Hurrah for Homespun!
• “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day . . .”
• The Civil War in Surprising Places: The Pop Culture Delights of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry
• Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit, and Their Continued Influence
• The Book I Threw (and Then Picked Up Again)
• AndersonvilleOffers Wonderful Writing Amidst Horrific Suffering
• Thoughts on Madame Castel’s Lodger
• Richard Adams, Author of Traveller, Dies at 96
• A Beautiful, Despairing Journey with a Coal-Black Horse
• The Delicious “If”: MacKinlay Kantor’s If the South Had Won the Civil War and Alternative History
• Holiday Village Reenactments and Reflections
• Civil War Wargaming
• Gaming the Civil War
• Ready, Aim, Click!: A Look at the Civil War Through Video Games
• Battlefield to Football Field: Civil War Ties to College Football
• Re-Creating War in Peaceful Fields: Catharsis Through Reenacting
• The Civil War Art Boom (and Bust)
• The Stream of American History
• What If There Were No Civil War Epics?
• Contributors’ Notes