Civil War Citizens

At its core, the Civil War became a struggle over whether or not to grant rights to a group that stood outside the pale of citizenship: African American slaves. Other groupsnamely Jews, Germans, the Irish, and Native Americansalso became part of this struggle to exercise rights stripped from them by legislation, court rulings, and the prejudices that defined the age. The guns of Sumter offered these "outside" groups a unique opportunity to redefine their place in America and many rushed into the contest.Grounded in extensive research by experts in their respective fields,Civil War Citizensis the first effort to gather together into one book the wartime experiences of the populations who lived outside the dominant white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant citizenry of nineteenth-century America. Together, the contributors examine the momentous decisions made by these communities in the face of war, their desire for full citizenship, the complex loyalties that shaped their actions, and the inspiring and heartbreaking results of their choiceschoices that still echo through the United States today.Contributors:Stephen D. Engle, William McKee Evans, David T. Gleeson, Andrea Merländer, Joseph P. Reidy, Robert N. Rosen, and Susannah J. Ural.

Susannah J. Ural is Associate Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of War and Society. She is the author of The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865 (NYU Press, 2006).