Browsing by Subject "Civil War"
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Item American wasteland : a social and cultural history of excrement, 1860-1920(2012-05) Gerling, Daniel Max; Davis, Janet M.; Engelhardt, Elizabeth D.; Hartigan, John; Meikle, Jeffrey L.; Smith, Mark C.Human excrement is seldom considered to be an integral part of the human condition. Despite the relative silence regarding it, however, excrement has played a significant role in American history. Today the U.S. has more than two million miles of sewer pipes underneath it. Every year Americans flush more than a trillion gallons of water and fertilizer down the toilet, and farmers spend billions of dollars to buy artificial fertilizer. Furthermore, excrement is bound up in many complicated power relationships regarding race, gender, and ethnicity. This dissertation examines the period in American history, from the Civil War through the Progressive Era, when excrement transformed from commodity to waste. More specifically, it examines the cultural and social factors that led to its formulation as waste and the roles it played in the histories of American health, architecture, and imperialism. The first chapter assesses the vast changes to the country’s infrastructure and social fabric beginning in the late nineteenth century. On the subterranean level, much of America’s immense network of sewers was constructed during this era—making it one of the largest public works projects in U.S. history. Above ground, the United States Sanitary Commission, founded at the onset of the Civil War, commenced a widespread creation of sanitary commissions in municipalities, regions, and even internationally, that regulated defecation habits. Chapter Two assesses the social and architectural change that occurred as the toilet moved from the outhouse to inside the house—specifically, how awkwardly newly built homes accommodated this novel room and how the toilet’s move inside actually hastened its removal. The third chapter shifts focus to the way Americans considered their excrement in relation to their body in a time when efficiency a great virtue. Americans feared ailments related to “autointoxication” (constipation) and went to absurd lengths to rid their bodies of excrement. The fourth chapter analyzes the way excrement was racialized and the role it had in the various projects of American imperialism. The colonial subjects and potential American citizens—from Native Americans to Cubans, Filipinos, and Puerto Ricans—were regularly scrutinized, punished, and re-educated regarding their defecation habits.Item Enfield rifles: the composite conservation of our american civil war heritage(2009-05-15) Cox, Starr NicoleThe object of this thesis is to discuss an experimental composite conservation process and its significance for the future of artifact conservation. Composite artifacts are artifacts comprised of multiple materials such as wood, iron, and brass. The experiment was designed around five Civil War Enfield rifles from the wreck of the Civil War blockade runner Modern Greece. The main conservation difficulty for both metal and wood from a saltwater site is the presence of chlorides. If not removed, the chlorides will cause the metals to further corrode. If the chlorides are left within the wood, once the wood dries the chlorides will crystallize and burst remaining cellular structure. The second major problem for wood is the cellular structure itself. Degraded waterlogged wood loses most of its cellular structure while submerged and this must be reinforced prior to drying or partial to total collapse of the wood will occur. Composite artifacts pose one more serious problem, their composite nature. In most instances treatments for one material type are damaging to the other materials present. Disassembly of an artifact often has detrimental effects on the whole artifact whether through initial damage or the inability to reassemble the artifact after stabilization. In 1979, four Enfield rifles from Modern Greece were compositely conserved using either tetraethyl orthosilicate, sucrose, or isopropyl rosin. All three treatments focused on the conservation of the wood, resulting in the current poor condition of the iron elements. The research of this thesis uses the combined treatments of silicone oil (to treat the wood) and electrolytic reduction [ER] (to stabilize the metals), with minimal disassembly. It was discovered that prolonged exposure of the wood elements during ER had deleterious effects, post the silicone oil treatment. This prompted a re-evaluation of the research strategy. It was determined to do a re-treatment of the wood components of four of the rifles with silicone oil after the ER process. It was apparent during the ER process that iron components had loosened and could be removed allowing the wood to be extracted from the ER process earlier than the iron. Even though the experiment did not go as planned and the initial results were undesirable, valuable information was ascertained for treatment strategies and positive results are expected for the final four rifles. The retreatment of the wood with silicone oil should allow the wood to retain its shape, making reassembly possible.Item Forging a nation while losing a country : Igbo nationalism, ethnicity and propaganda in the Nigerian Civil War 1968-1970(2011-08) Doron, Roy Samuel; Falola, Toyin; Okpen, Okpeh; Walker, Juliet; Boone, Catherine; Brannds, HWThis project looks at the ways the Biafran Government maintained their war machine in spite of the hopeless situation that emerged in the summer of 1968. Ojukwu’s government looked certain to topple at the beginning of the summer of 1968, yet Biafra held on and did not capitulate until nearly two years later, on 15 January 1970. The Ojukwu regime found itself in a serious predicament; how to maintain support for a war that was increasingly costly to the Igbo people, both in military terms and in the menacing face of the starvation of the civilian population. Further, the Biafran government had to not only mobilize a global public opinion campaign against the “genocidal” campaign waged against them, but also convince the world that the only option for Igbo survival was an independent Biafra. Thus it is not enough to look at the international aspects of the war, or to consider the war on a strictly domestic level. By looking at both the internal and external factors that shaped the Biafran propaganda machine and the Biafran war effort and how these efforts influenced international support and galvanized internal resolve to continue fighting, we can see how the Biafran war effort was able to last for twenty months after the fall of Port Harcourt. Recent scholarly and political work, uncovered documents, and the new plethora of memoirs on the Civil War provide us with a veritable treasure trove of data and analysis with which to study the issue of Igbo nationalism and a unique opportunity to create a new vision of secessionist conflict in Africa. This work will thus provide a step in moving away from the long accepted “Tribalism” paradigm that has so long pervaded not only the study of post-colonial Civil Wars in Africa, but more importantly, the discourse in looking at ethnicity, violence and national identity across the continent. Further, by analyzing the ways that the Biafran propaganda machine operated on a nationalist level, we can see the effects of Biafran secession on the broader Igbo national consciousness and the Igbo national movement, as well as on subsequent political movements in Nigeria.Item Greyhound general: a military biography of Major General John G. Walker, CSA(Texas Tech University, 2005-12) Haralson, James Brent; Barr, Alwyn; Carlson, Paul H.In the world of American history perhaps no other field has been studied more thoroughly that the American Civil War. While most of the major campaigns and important figures have been covered in detail, a few topics remain relatively unexplored. One such figure is Major General John G. Walker. Walker's famous division of Texans has been researched in fine detail, but no work of any length exists about the man who led these troops in battle. This thesis is an attempt to shed light on Walker and his military career. This document will explore Walker's early military career and experiences in the War with Mexico and his service with the U.S. Mounted Rifles on the American frontier. When the Civil War began in 1861, Walker joined the Confederate army and served with the Army of Northern Virginia. The thesis examines the important role Walker played during the Maryland Campaign of 1862. Later chapters follow Walker to the Trans-Mississippi West and explore his time at the head of the Texas division and various districts commands in the department. The ultimate purpose of the work is to examine and provide readers a look into Walker's experiences, decisions, campaigns and battles, and the relationships he had with his superiors and the troops that served under his command. Such an examination will provide a better understanding of Walker as a person and as a soldier in the crucial events of America's past.Item Greyhound general: A military biography of Major General John G. Walker, CSA(2005-12) Haralson, James Brent; Barr, Alwyn; Carlson, Paul H.In the world of American history perhaps no other field has been studied more thoroughly that the American Civil War. While most of the major campaigns and important figures have been covered in detail, a few topics remain relatively unexplored. One such figure is Major General John G. Walker. Walker’s famous division of Texans has been researched in fine detail, but no work of any length exists about the man who led these troops in battle. This thesis is an attempt to shed light on Walker and his military career. This document will explore Walker’s early military career and experiences in the War with Mexico and his service with the U.S. Mounted Rifles on the American frontier. When the Civil War began in 1861, Walker joined the Confederate army and served with the Army of Northern Virginia. The thesis examines the important role Walker played during the Maryland Campaign of 1862. Later chapters follow Walker to the Trans-Mississippi West and explore his time at the head of the Texas division and various districts commands in the department. The ultimate purpose of the work is to examine and provide readers a look into Walker’s experiences, decisions, campaigns and battles, and the relationships he had with his superiors and the troops that served under his command. Such an examination will provide a better understanding of Walker as a person and as a soldier in the crucial events of America’s past.Item Lew Wallace and the civil war: politics and generalship(2009-05-15) Mortenson, Christopher RyanA rising politician from Indiana, Lew Wallace became a Civil War general through political connections. As the war developed, political generals contributed to the Union war effort in multiple ways. This dissertation evaluates Wallace?s service for the Union. While he had much success as a regimental commander, he experienced troubles at the brigade and division levels. Some natural rivalry and tension between West Pointers and political generals may have caused ill-will between Wallace and professionally trained officers, but other factors also contributed to his difficulties. A temperamental officer, Wallace often sought out mentors, but then quickly found reasons to fault them. Wallace?s lack of respect for his superiors led him to occasionally criticize or be rude to them. Moreover, General Wallace vigorously sought chances to see glorious action in the field, but then failed to perform well when given the opportunity. Despite creating problems for himself, such as his recurrent unwillingness to give speeches and recruit soldiers for the Union, Wallace concluded his Civil War service having contributed both politically and militarily to the war effort. For example, the general came to the aid of the Union right flank at Fort Donelson, performed admirably on the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, and defended Cincinnati in 1862. He came to the defense of southern Indiana and continued to grudgingly assist in recruiting new troops in 1863. He administered Baltimore and the Middle Department and set up an adequate defense at the Monocacy River in 1864. Wallace also accepted politically risky assignments on high-profile military commissions in 1862 and 1865. His service as a volunteer general demonstrated how a politician in uniform should be evaluated differently than most professionally trained officers.Item The life of Governor Samuel Willis Tucker Lanham(1930) Lanham, Martha AndersonIt is the purpose of this paper to give the career of S.W.T. Lanham showing the part he had during the periods of struggle and strife through which the United States passed during the years of his life, as soldier of the Confederacy in the War between the States, as pioneer on the western frontier of Texas, as teacher in a log cabin school house, as lawyer and District Attorney, as Congressman from a district of eighty-odd counties, and finally as Governor of Texas.Item Ordinary warscapes in Sierra Leone: the relationship between the Sierra Leone Civil War and its cultural landscape(2009-05-15) Wagstaff, Jeremiah MatthewThe recent civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002) saw massive migrations amongst the civilian population and widespread damage to villages and towns. This study combines elements of military and cultural geography to ask the questions of how the events of the war changed the cultural landscape and how the cultural landscape influenced the course of the war. Fieldwork for this study was conducted during the summer of 2005 in the Eastern Province and included numerous semi-structured interviews regarding the landscape histories of villages, towns, and various temporary camps. These findings revealed that a clear relationship existed between the civil war and the cultural landscape. On the one hand, the war caused dramatic changes in the morphology of the cultural landscape, creating three distinct landscapes (pre-war, wartime, and post-war), while on the other hand the cultural landscape went far to structure the character of the war. In order to understand how the cultural landscape structured the war one must first consider how the landscape was perceived by each major faction (Revolutionary United Front, Sierra Leone Army, and Civil Defense Forces) as presenting a unique set of risks and opportunities. This perception was based in their strategic intentions and capabilities. Intentions can be understood as military objectives (derived from political goals), while capabilities can be understood as factors which constrain and enable action. Since each faction had different military objectives and capabilities they each perceived the landscape in a unique manner and this perception influenced their military operations. It is recommended that cultural geographers begin to study the impacts of war on the landscape and that military geographers expand their focus on the physical landscape by taking into account the role of the cultural landscape and environmental perception.Item 'A plea for Missouri' : the American Home Missionary Society and the Civil War-era struggle for Missouri and the West(2015-05) Morse, Scott Notley; Jones, Jacqueline, 1948-; Forgie, George BChanges in Calvinist theology led its principal American denominations, the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, in the early nineteenth century to create voluntary societies in order to conduct mission work. Founded in 1826, the American Home Missionary Society (AHMS) was America’s principal domestic missionary society. It sought to spread the Gospel on the western frontier, thereby laying the foundation for an expanded, Godly American republic and the millennium foretold in the Book of Revelation. With its central location and abundant natural resources, Missouri was central to this effort. The AHMS sent missionaries to the frontier to convert in-migrants from the eastern and southern states and foreign immigrants. By so doing, the AHMS would prevent Catholicism, rationalism and enthusiastic religion – primarily the Baptists and Methodists – from taking hold. Foreign immigrants would be assimilated. They would embrace American virtues including temperance and Sabbath observance. This would be accomplished through moral suasion or, failing that, by force of law. The AHMS encouraged the in-migration of New Englanders – in its view, the exemplars of the highest possible virtue – in the hope of replicating the New England way of life in Missouri. The AHMS long sought to avoid the issue of slavery for fear of alienating Southerners. While most of its Missouri missionaries were northern, anti-slavery clergymen, they also tended to avoid the issue for fear of offending their congregants. In December 1856, pressure from northern donors forced the AHMS to begin withholding financial support from churches with slaveholding members. This led to a rupture in relations between the AHMS and its Missouri auxiliary and to the AHMS discontinuing mission work there during the late 1850s. When it returned in the early part of the Civil War, the AHMS, and its newly recruited missionaries, were overtly abolitionist. The traditional animosity in Missouri toward Congregationalism as northern and abolitionist caused the AHMS to conduct its pre-war mission work through New School Presbyterian churches. In 1861, the New School Presbyterians withdrew from the AHMS and it became a solely Congregationalist society. As the Civil War ended, the AHMS devoted considerable effort to establishing Congregationalism in Missouri. However, competition from, among others, the Methodists and Baptists, and the unwillingness of foreign immigrants to abandon their Catholicism, largely prevented long-term success.Item The battle of Sailor's Creek: a study in leadership(Texas A&M University, 2007-04-25) Smith, Cloyd Allen, Jr.The Battle of Sailor's Creek, 6 April 1865, has been overshadowed by Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House several days later, yet it is an example of the Union military war machine reaching its apex of war making ability during the Civil War. Through Ulysses S. Grant's leadership and that of his subordinates, the Union armies, specifically that of the Army of the Potomac, had been transformed into a highly motivated, organized and responsive tool of war, led by confident leaders who understood their commander's intent and were able to execute on that intent with audacious initiative in the absence of further orders. After Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia escaped from Petersburg and Richmond on 2 April 1865, Grant's forces chased after Lee's forces with the intent of destroying the mighty and once feared protector of the Confederate States in the hopes of bringing a swift end to the long war. At Sailor's Creek, Phil Sheridan, Grant's cavalry commander was able to put his forces south and west of Lee's Army trapping it between Sheridan's cavalry and George Meade's Army of the Potomac. After fighting a brutal, close quarters engagement, Union forces captured or killed the majority of two of Lee's corps, commanded by Richard H. Anderson and Richard S. Ewell, and severely attrited a third corps under John B. Gordon, leaving Lee only James Longstreet's corps intact to continue the struggle.Item The Cavalier Image in the Civil War and the Southern Mind(2012-07-16) Allgood, ColtThis thesis examines the methods and actions of selected Virginians who chose to adopt irregular tactics in wartime, and focuses on the reasons why they fought that way. The presence of the Cavalier image in Virginia had a direct impact on the military exploits of several cavalry officers in both the Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. The Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War gave rise to the original Cavalier image, but as migrants came to Virginia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the image became a general term for the Southern planter. This thesis contends that selected Virginia cavalry officers attempted to adhere to an Americanized version of the Cavalier image. They either purposefully embodied aspects of the Cavalier image during their military service, or members of the Southern populace attached the Cavalier image to them in the post-war period. The Cavalier thus served as a military ideal, and some cavalry officers represented a romanticized version of the Southern martial hero. This thesis traces the development of the Cavalier image in Virginia chronologically. It focuses on the origins of the Cavalier image and the role of the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War. After the Royalist migration, and especially during the American Revolution, Virginians like Henry Lee embodied aspects of the Cavalier image during their military careers. Between the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the Civil War, some Southern authors perpetuated the image by including Cavalier figures in many of their literary works. In the Civil War, select Virginians who fought for the Confederacy personified the Cavalier hero in the minds of many white Southerners. Despite a Confederate defeat, the Cavalier image persisted in Southern culture in the post-Civil War period and into the twentieth century.Item The Legacy of the Gettysburg Address, 1863-1965(2011-10-21) Peatman, Jared ElliottMy project examines the legacy of the Gettysburg Address from 1863 to 1965. After an introduction and a chapter setting the stage, each succeeding chapter surveys the meaning of the Gettysburg Address at key moments: the initial reception of the speech in 1863; its status during the semi-centennial in 1913 and during the construction of the Lincoln Memorial; the place it held during the world wars; and the transformation of the Address in the late 1950s and early 1960s marked by the confluence of the Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, Lincoln Birth Sesquicentennial, and Civil War Centennial. My final chapter considers how interpretations of the Address changed in textbooks from 1900 to 1965, and provides the entire trajectory of the evolving meanings of the speech in one medium and in one chapter. For each time period I have analyzed what the Address meant to people living in four cities: Gettysburg, Richmond, New York, and London. My argument is twofold. First, rather than operating as a national document the Gettysburg Address has always held different meanings in the North and South. Given that the speech addressed questions central to the United States (equality and democracy), this lack of a common interpretation illustrates that there was no singular collective memory or national identity regarding core values. Second, as the nation and world shifted, so did the meaning of the Gettysburg Address. Well into the twentieth-century the essence of the speech was proclaimed to be its support of the democratic form of government as opposed to monarchies or other institutions. But in the middle twentieth-century that interpretation began to shift, with many both abroad and at home beginning to see the speech?s assertion of human equality as its focal point and most important contribution.Item "What Are Marines For?" The United States Marine Corps in the Civil War Era(2012-07-16) Krivdo, Michael EdwardThis dissertation provides analysis on several areas of study related to the history of the United States Marine Corps in the Civil War Era. One element scrutinizes the efforts of Commandant Archibald Henderson to transform the Corps into a more nimble and professional organization. Henderson's initiatives are placed within the framework of the several fundamental changes that the U.S. Navy was undergoing as it worked to experiment with, acquire, and incorporate new naval technologies into its own operational concept. Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Henderson's programs are provided and comparisons drawn with those priorities established by his successor, Commandant John Harris. In addition, the operations undertaken by the Corps during the Civil War are evaluated in terms of their relative benefit for the national military establishment as a whole. The Corps organization and operational concept is scrutinized and compared with that of similar military structures. In particular, the relationship between the U.S. Marine Corps and the Confederate States Marine Corps are compared. In the process, the South's Corps, born in part out of that of the North's, exhibited many distinct advantages that the USMC solidly resisted adopting during the war years. The influence of key leaders, both military and civilian, reveals many problems that continued to negatively affect the Corps' ability to meet operational requirements as defined by senior naval and Army commanders. Yet despite these issues, the Corps' Civil War experiences served as a crucible for forging a new generation of leaders who earnestly fought for reforms and increased professionalization of the unit. Although the Corps suffered from several problems related to lack of institutional vision and leadership failings of some senior officers, at a small unit level the officers and Marines performed their duties in a competent, enthusiastic, and courageous manner. Therefore, Marines continued to be in great demand by naval commanders at all levels, who actively sought their service in a variety of operation.Item ?"Won't we never get out of this state??": western soldiers in post-civil war Texas, 1865-1866(Texas A&M University, 2005-02-17) Beall, Jonathan AndrewAfter the Civil War, the government needed to send an occupation force into Texas to help rebuild the state government and confront the French Imperialist forces that had invaded Mexico. Unfortunately, the government was required to use volunteers because the Regular Army was not yet prepared to handle such a mission. Using citizen soldiers for peacetime occupation was a break from past military tradition, and the men did not appreciate such an act. Historians of Reconstruction Texas have focused on state politics, the rampant violence in the state throughout this period, and the role of freedmen in situating themselves to an uncertain and hostile society. Studies of the military in post-Civil War Texas have examined the army?s role in the state?s political reconstruction, but largely ignore the soldiers. Additionally, these works tend to over-generalize the experience and relations of the troops and Texans. This thesis looks at Western citizen soldiers, comprising the Fourth and Thirteenth Army Corps as well as two cavalry divisions, stationed in Texas after the war from the Rio Grande to San Antonio to Marshall. Beginning with the unit?s receiving official orders to proceed to Texas after the surrender of the principal Confederate forces in 1865, it follows the movements from wartime positions in Tennessee and Alabama to peacetime posts within Texas. The study examines Texan-soldier relations as they differed from place to place. It also investigates the Westerners? peacetime occupation duties and the conditions endured in Texas. The thesis argues that there was diversity in both the Western volunteers? experiences and relations with occupied Texans, and it was not as monolithic as past historians have suggested. Specifically, this study endeavors to supplement the existing historiography of the army in Texas during Reconstruction. Broadly, this thesis also hopes to be a more general look at the use of citizen soldiers for postwar occupation duty.