“If I Get Home Safe”: William C. White’s Experiences in the American Civil War
Even though his journey to the Capitol may not have been the culmination of his experiences in the American Civil War, it certainly left a lasting impression. Like many other Irish-Catholic Philadelphians, White’s actions in the Civil War allowed him to proudly identify as an Irish-American. While thousands of letters from Union and Confederate soldiers exist, William C. White’s Letters, 1861-1869 provides an intriguing new perspective on the war. As an Irish-Catholic Philadelphian, White was raised in a tradition and culture that has not received much attention from scholars. White’s upbringing in the tough ethnic districts of Philadelphia was marked by prejudice, poverty, and outright violence. Despite Philadelphia’s standing as a cultural, economic, and political power, waves of ethnically focused violence periodically occurred. This violence climaxed with the destructive and deadly Nativist Riots of 1844. Irish men, women, and children were physically and verbally assaulted, Irish-Catholic churches burned, and Irish laborers forced to work for the lowest paying, most menial jobs available. White grew up in this highly charged ethnic context, and it helped to shape the ways in which he
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
James M. McPherson is acclaimed as one of the finest historians writing today and a preeminent commentator on the Civil War. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of that conflict, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called 'history writing of the highest order.' Now, McPherson has brilliantly recreated the war and battle experience of that war from the point of view of the soldiers themselves, drawing on at least 25,000 letters written by over 1000 soldiers, both Union and Confederate. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, these men remained highly motivated and idealistic about the cause for which they fought, regardless of the obstacles and deprivation that they faced.
PLEASURE, POWER, AND THE PURSUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOVIET YOUTH AND STATE-SPONSORED POPULAR CULTURE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR, 1945-1968
art, with certain students accused of “showing political immaturity, failing to understand the Party’s positions on art.” This episode constituted part of a broader crackdown on abstract art by the Khrushchev administration from late 1962, precipitated the the Soviet leader’s derision of such art forms in December 1962 at the Manege exhibit. Such instances demonstrate the limitations of the top-level promotion of youth grassroots initiative, as the Khrushchev leadership reigned in youth autonomy when it threatened to go beyond the boundaries of the permissible. The dates cited above have particular resonance, since both 1957-58 and 1962-63 represent two periods when those at the top of the Party hierarchy moved away from pursuing a more pluralistic, tolerant policy course, due to anxiety inspired by both sharpening Cold War hostilities and domestic developments. In these periods, official rhetoric censured what it labeled as 639 TsAOPIM, f. 635, op. 13, d. 546, ll. 56-57. This is likely related to criticism of the Party associated with the fallout from the Secret Speech and the Hungary invasion. For more, see Polly Jones, “From the Secret Speech to the Burial of Stalin: Real and Ideal Responses to De-Stalinization,” in Jones ed., The Dilemmas, 41-63. 640 TsAOPIM, f. 6083, op. 1, d. 52, ll. 166-67. 641 Susan E. Reid, “In the Name of the People: The Manege Affair Revisited,” Kritika 6.4 (Fall 2005): 673716. 642 On these anxieties, see Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer, 156-88.