After the Civil War, white Confederate and Union army veterans
reentered--or struggled to reenter--the lives and communities they had
left behind. In Sing Not War, James Marten explores how the nineteenth
century's "Greatest Generation" attempted to blend back into society and
how their experiences were treated by nonveterans.
Many soldiers, Marten reveals, had a much harder time reintegrating into
their communities and returning to their civilian lives than has been
previously understood. Although Civil War veterans were generally well
taken care of during the Gilded Age, Marten argues that veterans lost
control of their legacies, becoming best remembered as others wanted to
remember them--for their service in the war and their postwar political
activities. Marten finds that while southern veterans were venerated for
their service to the Confederacy, Union veterans often encountered
resentment and even outright hostility as they aged and made greater
demands on the public purse. Drawing on letters, diaries, journals,
memoirs, newspapers, and other sources, Sing Not War illustrates that
during the Gilded Age "veteran" conjured up several conflicting images
and invoked contradicting reactions. Deeply researched and vividly
narrated, Marten's book counters the romanticized vision of the lives of
Civil War veterans, bringing forth new information about how white
veterans were treated and how they lived out their lives.