Take Care of the Living: Reconstructing Confederate Veteran Families in Virginia
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Description
Take Care of the Living assesses the short- and long-term impact of the war on Confederate veteran families of all classes in Pittsylvania County and Danville, Virginia. Using letters, diaries, church minutes, and military and state records, as well as close analysis of the entire 1860 and 1870 Pittsylvania County manuscript population census, McClurken explores the consequences of the war for over three thousand Confederate soldiers and their families. The author reveals an array of strategies employed by those families to come to terms with their postwar reality, including reorganizing and reconstructing the household, turning to local churches for emotional and economic support, pleading with local elites for financial assistance or positions, sending psychologically damaged family members to a state-run asylum, and looking to the state for direct assistance in the form of replacement limbs for amputees, pensions, and even state-supported homes for old soldiers and widows.
ISBN
9780813928135
Publication Date
8-2009
Publisher
University of Virginia Press
City
Charlottesville
Keywords
Reconstruction, Veterans, Virginia, Social conditions, Confederate
Disciplines
Social History | United States History
Recommended Citation
McClurken, Jeffrey W., "Take Care of the Living: Reconstructing Confederate Veteran Families in Virginia" (2009). History and American Studies Books. 4.
https://scholar.umw.edu/hist_amst_books/4