Casey Jr. - New men: reconstructing the image of the veteran in late nineteenth-century American literature and culture

NEW MEN

RECONSTRUCTING AMERICA

Andrew L. Slap, series editor

New Men

Reconstructing the Image of the Veteran in Late-Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture

John A. Casey Jr.

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK
2015

Copyright 2015 Fordham University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Casey, John A., Jr.

New men : reconstructing the image of the veteran in late nineteenth-century American literature and culture / John A. Casey, Jr. First edition.

pages cm (Reconstructing America)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8232-6539-8 (hardback)

1. American literature19th centuryHistory and criticism. 2. Veterans in literature. 3. Veteran reintegrationUnited StatesHistory. 4. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Literature and the war. 5. VeteransUnited StatesHistory. I. Title. II. Title: Reconstructing the image of the veteran in late nineteenth-century American literature and culture.

PS217.V48C37 2015

810.9'352697dc23

2014045375

Printed in the United States of America

17 16 15 5 4 3 2 1

First edition

To my paternal grandfather, the late Martin E. Casey Jr.,
whose extensive collection of illustrated military history books
started my interest in the Civil War and its soldiers, as well as to
my Uncle Paul, who was the first living historian I ever met.

Hic Placet.

Contents

Writing a book of any kind is far from a solitary endeavor. Doing so requires the patience and assistance of all those whose lives are touched by the author. This project is no different.

New Men began as a seminar paper in a graduate-level Civil War literature class I attended in the fall of 2000 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In that class I first encountered John William De Forest through his novel Miss Ravenels Conversion. I owe both the professor of that seminar, Terence Whalen, and the author he introduced me to for the first time, John William De Forest, a great debt. Whalens engaging course provided me with more than just a research topic; it also provided a methodology that continues to shape my scholarship.

I have incurred numerous other obligations to generous scholars who have helped me locate resources for this project as well as sharpen the ideas presented in these pages. My particular thanks go out to Michael Perman and Robin Grey. I was honored to earn the respect of such a well-known historian as Professor Perman through my extensive primary research. The careful reading by my mentor, Robin Grey, of the innumerable drafts of each chapter I sent her has helped make this a solid piece of scholarship. Id also like to thank Brian Mornar and Jennifer Joan Smith. I gained much from their observant commentary on each chapter.

Turning my research into a book has required the assistance of innumerable libraries and librarians along the way. Special thanks are due to Teri Embrey and Devin Hunter at the Pritzker Military Library, Teresa Yoder in the Special Collections Department at the Chicago Public Library, and the reading room staff at the William L. Clements LibraryTerese Austin, Valerie Proehl, and Diana Sykeswho brought me countless boxes of soldiers letters during my summer visit to their archives. Id also like to express my appreciation to the staffs at the Newberry Library, the Filson Historical Society, and the Special Collections Departments at Washington and Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute.

Grants provided by the University of Illinois at Chicago Alumni Association, the Filson Historical Society, and the Upton Foundation supplied much-needed funding for my research. I am grateful to the journals American Literary Realism and Civil War History, in which earlier versions of of this book appeared, for their publication permissions.

The staff at Fordham University Press has been both patient with and helpful to this first-time author. Series editor Andy Slap deserves particular mention, as it was he who contacted me about publishing this project and has ushered it through the early stages of the publication process.

And finally, to all those friends and colleagues who listened to me complain about the difficulties I faced during the research and writing of this book, you have my undying love and admiration. The books done. I promise Ill be quiet now, at least until the next project.

My enthusiasm was pretty well aroused Mondayit being Memorial Dayand it was a beautiful sight to see the Grand A.R. observe the ceremonies consequent on that day. I think on one occasion on that day, and I dont know but more than one, the thought came to me that perhaps we as soldiers would be as much thought of if we were under the turf as wellbut of course live soldiers dont deserve as much credit as dead ones.

Letter from James C. Bolles to Charles Maxim

The question of what the living owe to the dead is central to the healing process for any culture following war. Cemeteries, monuments, and rituals such as parades are all pieces of the attempt by a society to remember the sacrifices of those who gave their lives in its defense. From these commemorations, a public memory develops of the war, its causes, and its larger significance. This public memory becomes the story of the war that a society tells its future generations. What civilians owe to veterans is a much thornier question. Unlike dead soldiers, veterans endure as everyday reminders of the conflict in which they participated and often require considerable medical and financial aid to help them adjust to postwar life. Veterans also tend to complicate the portrait of war created by public memory. Their diverse experiences remind a society of the messiness of war at a time when most members of that society are searching for closure.

Each war has its unique characteristics, but they all seem to share this conundrum of how to address living veterans. New Men explores this problem in the context of the postCivil Warera United States. In this book we see the tangled reintegration process of former soldiers from the North and South as they attempted to reenter civilian life. We also see the growing tension that develops between the well-meaning civilians who attempted to understand those who fought in the war and Civil War veterans who sensed they were perceived as different following discharge from the army but struggled to explain how and why. From that tension emerged a new understanding of what it meant to be a veteran. No longer the marker of a temporary status, veteran came to connote a new identity that was associated with a new state of consciousness. This shift in the understanding of what it meant to be a veteran was a different type of reconstruction that would influence how later generations of U.S. authors wrote about war. Not simply one event in a mans life, military service in time of war became a defining experience.

Through studying this shift in the conception of the veteran, the research in