Don't Hurry Me Down to Hades: Soldiers and Families in America's Civil War (General Military) - Softcover

Ural, Susannah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1472809106 ISBN 13: 9781472809100

Publisher: Osprey Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

For four years American families on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line were forced to endure the violence and hardship of the Civil War. Don't Hurry Me Down To Hades is the story of these families, expertly crafted from their own words. Revealing the innermost thoughts of both famous citizens and men and women forgotten by history, esteemed Civil War historian Susannah J. Ural explores life on the battlefield and the home front, capturing the astonishing perseverance of the men and women caught up in this most brutal of conflicts.

About this title

About the Author

Susannah J. Ural, PhD., is an Associate Professor of History and Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of War & Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. She teaches a variety of courses relating to nineteenth-century America, the field of war and society, and the U.S. Civil War era. Her first book, The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865 (NYU Press, 2006) examined the motivations and experiences of Irish Catholic soldiers and their families. Her second work, the edited collection Civil War Citizens: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity in America's Bloodiest Conflict, (NYU Press, 2010) chronicles larger ethnic experiences in the 1860s. She is currently finishing her narrative history of John Bell Hood's Texas Brigade, entitled Hood's Boys, which highlights the experiences of the men and the families of this unit, the communities from which they came, and how they represent the larger Confederate experience. Susannah Ural and her family live in Petal, Mississippi. The author lives in Petal, MS.

Review

“This well-researched venture reveals the human side of the Civil War...Ural's fine combination of military history and personal saga uses original documents to excellent effect.” ―Publishers Weekly

“The author highlights the social and cultural history of the American Civil War by linking new, rare accounts of families and ordinatry citizens who witnessed the war with a compelling contextual analysis of the period.” ―Military History Quarterly

“Taking her sources as her co-authors, Susannah Ural ferries us deep inside the maelstrom of the Civil War to its very heart, where we realize anew that war is not a sequence of battles but a vast mosaic of heart-rending family crises. Beautifully written, exhaustively researched, and highly recommended.” ―Professor Stephen Berry, Gregory Professor of the Civil War Era, University of Georgia

“Susannah J. Ural's Don't Hurry Me Down to Hades masterfully recounts the Civil War, relying on the voices of the people who experienced it.   Her narrative captures its vastness and violence, moving North to South, battlefield to homefront, but also poignant moments of intimacy and loss... The result is a fresh and engaging account of the conflict.” ―Lesley J. Gordon, Editor, Civil War History

“Susannah J. Ural reminds us that the Civil War was fought by real people with families and deep emotional connections... This is the Civil War as lived experience, vibrantly and movingly written.” ―Professor Anne Sarah Rubin, author of A Shattered Nation

“In this dramatic, expertly conceived and executed work, editor Ural deftly weaves the words and lives of the participants into a narrative of rare depth and insight. What she achieves is to go beyond the simple daily routines of the historical actors, as the powerful letters and journals she includes give readers a sense of the internal struggles that flowed through every facet of the war and society itself. And if the participants' words and the editor's remarkable prose and historical knowledge were not enough, the work also contains a most impressive and generous set of high-resolution plates. For Civil War enthusiasts and historians of the era, this is a must read. Summing Up: Essential.” ―T. Maxwell-Long, California State University, San Bernardino, CHOICE Magazine

“Gracefully written and powerfully argued, Don't Hurry Me Down to Hades offers an eye-opening new perspective on the Civil War's social and cultural history.” ―Professor Amy Murrell Taylor, author of The Divided Family in Civil War America

About this edition

• Publisher: Osprey Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1472809106
• ISBN 13: 9781472809100
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296