From debates over Confederate statues to battles over immigration, the American Civil War looms larger in our present-day than any other event in this nation’s history. In this survey course, open to majors and non-majors alike, we will explore the transformation of the United States between 1845 and 1877, a period that witnessed a conflict that cost 800,000 lives and a radical reshaping of American society.

From the battlefield to the factory floor, from southern cotton plantations to the halls of Congress, we will the experience and consequences of the bloodiest war in American history and the radical social and economic experiment of Reconstruction. Although we will cover the military campaigns and the great political debates of the era, the focus of this course will be the immense social changes that caused and followed the Civil War. We will study the shifting role of women in American society, the rise of industrial capitalism, and especially the central place of slavery and the meaning of the emancipation of four and a half million men and women. And we will keep an eye on the present because the meaning of the Civil War—like the meaning of American freedom that the war helped define—remains open and contested today.

Course Requirements:

Two papers, midterm, final exam

Intended Audience:

Majors and non-majors at any level

Class Format:

Lecture and discussion