CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION IN ALABAMA

ix, xxiii, 815 pp., maps, index, new intro. + iilus. Fleming's Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama is included in Twenty Alabama Books by Rucker Agee. He states that Fleming "had a favorable opportunity for gathering source materials, newspapers, broadsides, edicts, correspondence, and memoirs, which he undertook to record, evaluate, and interpret." The result is a "scholarly work" on the period of Reconstruction in Alabama, as well as an account of antebellum conditions--social, economic, and political--and the effects of the Civil War on these institutions. Fleming was a son of his times, and his racial prejudices have been well-documented. Dr. Sarah Wiggins, in her introduction to this reprint edition states: "These prejudices are so obvious as to be noticeable to even the casual reader, and thereby their danger is minimized." Fleming's evaluation of the antebellum and Civil War periods in Alabama history was basically sound and complete. His study of Reconstruction remains a classic and, as such, a starting point for anyone interested in Alabama Reconstructon as it was when the book was first published over a century ago.…