War Is All Hell: The Nature of Evil and the Civil War

Description

During his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln expressed hope that the "better angels of our nature" would prevail as war loomed. He was wrong. The better angels did not, but for many Americans, the evil ones did. War Is All Hell peers into the world of devils, demons, Satan, and hell during the era of the American Civil War. It charts how African Americans and abolitionists compared slavery to hell, how Unionists rendered Confederate secession illegal by linking it to Satan, and how many Civil War soldiers came to understand themselves as living in hellish circumstances. War Is All Hell also examines how many Americans used evil to advance their own agendas. Sometimes literally, oftentimes figuratively, the agents of hell and hell itself became central means for many Americans to understand themselves and those around them, to legitimate their viewpoints and actions, and to challenge those of others. Many who opposed emancipation did so by casting Abraham Lincoln as the devil incarnate. Those who wished to pursue harsher war measures encouraged their soldiers to "fight like devils." And finally, after the war, when white men desired to stop genuine justice, they terrorized African Americans by dressing up as demons. A combination of religious, political, cultural, and military history, War Is All Hell illuminates why, after the war, one of its leading generals described it as "all hell."

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  War Is All Hell: The Nature of Evil and the...

  • 2021-05-28
  • 256 pages
  • Paperback
  • University of Pennsylvania Press
• 

  War is All Hell: A Collection of Civil War Quotations

  • 2004
  • 240 pages
  • Paperback
  • Cumberland House Publishing

Similar books

• 

  The Civil War: War is all hell, 1865. Episode 8

  Sherman marches to the sea, Lincoln is inaugurated, Lee's army flees to Appomattox and surrenders.

• 

  War 2: All Hell Breaks Loose

  By T. Styles

  After bullets fly, Banks' primary intention is to get his family safely to the beautiful Wales Island. It soon becomes obvious that this is easier planned than done.

• 

  War Is Not All Hell: The Story of Comraderie and Friendship Born in Times of War

  By William R. Covington

  To be sure, our many freedoms, our opportunities, and our safe living environment in the USA did not and still do not come without a price. This story is for friends, comrades and any others that have had similar experiences.

• 

  Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War

  By Michael C. C. Adams

  Living Hell is a moving, often graphic, exploration of what the war did to men’s bodies and minds."—History Book Club "Any who would truly understand the daily trials of the Civil War must have this book!"—Midwest Book Review "A ...

• 

  All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-45

  By Max Hastings

  A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War.

• 

  Pathway to Hell: A Tragedy of the American Civil War

  By Dennis W. Brandt

  A Tragedy of the American Civil War Dennis W. Brandt ... [Cpl.] W[allace] Brewer & [Pvt.] L[eslie] Bard & [Pvt.] Hero Bloom were with me. ... [Pvt. William M.] Maxson fell dead within a few feet of him.7 Well, it was close work.

• 

  A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation

  By John Matteson

  Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Matteson illuminates three harrowing months of the Civil War and their enduring legacy for America.

• 

  And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

  By Richard Engel

  I'D LIKETO THANKSTEPHEN G. SMITH, WHO HELPEDATEVERY STEP OF THEWAY AND without whom this book would never have been completed. Ben Plesser, who provided insight and raised questions I hadn't considered. Mary Engel, whose support and ...

• 

  William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country

  By James Lee McDonough

  Nichols, Story of the Great March, 56; Weintraub, Sherman's Christmas, 87; Hitchcock, Marching with Sherman, 119, 122, 158. Hitchcock, Marching with Sherman, 78. Nichols, Story of the Great March, 84; Weintraub, Sherman's Christmas, ...

• 

  All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change

  By Michael T. Klare

  ... assembled a military advisory board made up of highranking retired officers, including General Gordon R. Sullivan, former chief of staff of the Army, and Marine General Anthony C. Zinni, former commander of the Central Command.