Northern Character College-Educated New Englanders, Honor, Nationalism, and Leadership in the Civil War Era

The elite young men who inhabited northern antebellum states--the New Brahmins--developed their leadership class identity based on the term "character": an idealized internal standard of behavior consisting most importantly of educated, independent thought and selfless action. With its unique focus on Union honor, nationalism, and masculinity, Northern Character addresses the motivating factors of these young college-educated Yankees who rushed into the armed forces to take their place at the forefront of the Union's war.

This social and intellectual history tells the New Brahmins' story from the campus to the battlefield and, for the fortunate ones, home again. Northern Character examines how these good and moral "men of character" interacted with common soldiers and faced battle, reacted to seeing the South and real southerners, and approached race, Reconstruction, and Reconciliation.

Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai is an assistant professor of history at Angelo State University. He received his A.B. from Bowdoin College and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Mary Washington, and East Tennessee State University. His work examines the development of honor, nationalism, masculinity, leadership, and class identity in college-educated New Englanders. He has published essays in Maine History (January 2008), The Massachusetts Historical Review (November 2011), and Children, Youth, and the Sectional Conflict (New York University Press, 2012).