Description
In this highly-anticipated new work, Christopher Waldrep takes a fresh look at how the Vicksburg campaign was fought and remembered. He begins with a gripping account of the battle, deftly recounting the experiences of African-American troops fighting for the Union. Waldrep shows how as the scars of battle faded, the memory of the war was shaped both by the Northerners who controlled the battlefield and by the legacies of race and slavery that played out over the decades that followed.
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The 1863 siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi was the longest campaign of the American Civil War and left the Union Army in control of the Mississippi river. In this work, Waldrep (American history, San Francisco State U.) explores how historical memory of the battle has been shaped and contested from its immediate aftermath through the era of the New Deal. He describes how northern Federal officials, in control of the battle site, helped construct a Civil War narrative that is typically attributed to racist southern whites. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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