Stormfields

Syllabus: Sectionalism and Civil War

The flag of the 24th Michigan, the last regiment to join the Iron Brigade.  Made up of men from Hillsdale College and Hillsdale County.

Sectionalism and American Civil War, H303

Instructor: Brad Birzer (bbirzer@hillsdale.edu)

Spring 2017.  T/Th: 9:30-10:45; Lane 333

Office hours (tentative and subject to change, especially depending on the week):

T/TH: 11-1; Wed: 12-1.  And, by appointment.

Course Content

This course examines America’s movement toward secession, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, covering the years from roughly 1848 to 1877 with very brief excursions back to 1776, 1787, 1798, 1820, and 1833.  We will especially focus on the reasons for the Civil War (not surprisingly, they are varied and complex, though the issue of slavery and competing nationalist and republican visions explain many, many things), the reasons why soldiers fought, and the aftermath of the war.  We will meet heroes and villains (especially two killers with the first name of John), the Yankee Leviathan, the Yankee garden, nationalists, the C.S.A. socialist war state, the harassment committees, ignorance, bad intentions, the poets, the ministers, the priests, good intentions, idiocy, the machine, brilliance, cruelty, Christianity (in all its wondrous manifestations–Protestantism and Catholicism (sorry, no Eastern Orthodox in the war that I know of–though there were a few Greeks fighting, so probably some)), Siamese elephant troops, New Yorkers, Californians, Texans, South Carolinians, the reluctant, the beautiful, the too willing, the political theorists, the philosophers, the journalists, the ideologues and terrorists, the republicans (everywhere–North and South), the egalitarians, the enslavers, Barnburners, Fire-eaters, the weak, the dispossessed, Crackers, the strong, the brave, the liberated, the preyed upon, and the righteous.

Read More