Civil War Wests

"The Civil War was fought in the West, over the West; and Reconstruction took place, also, in and because of the West. The war's meanings moved across geography and time in surprising ways. Assembling a stellar group of scholars, Arenson and Graybill have produced a first-of-its-kind collection of original essays on an enduring American conflict about race, place, sovereignty, citizenship, and memory. The parts make a whole here that should alter the way we teach the Civil War and Reconstruction era."—David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory

"General Sherman, Frederick Douglass, Kit Carson, General Custer, Calamity Jane, camels, and an infamous pig all keep company in this illuminating collection in which the too-often separate narratives of Civil War, Reconstruction, and western history are shown to be intertwined. In these interlocking chapters, readers will find hidden gems that illuminate ways in which the federal government sought to enforce its authority across the American landscape and to limit the meanings of citizenship for African Americans, Native Americans, and Chinese Americans. Civil War Wests ably demonstrates that the Civil War was a national war and Reconstruction a far-reaching project that extended beyond the boundaries of the U.S. South."—Tiya Miles, author of Ties That Bind and The House on Diamond Hill

"This superb collection of wide-ranging, beautifully researched essays should startle every American historian into seeing just how much we have missed by leaving the American West too much out of the story of the traumatic, transformative middle years of the nineteenth century."—Elliott West, author of The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story

"Marked by vivid storytelling and provocative insights, Civil War Wests deepens our understanding of the conflict that sits at the center of the nation's history. No Civil War library can be considered complete without a copy of this volume."—Ari Kelman, author of A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek