Civil War Literary Analysis

What does one do when fighting in a war? What does a country do when fighting itself? There are many correct answers however the one that entails to this paper is to write about it. The Civil War lasted four years, and for those years it embodied literature. The Civil War was a powerful and impactful time in American literature.

General Information The Civil War began on April 12,1861 and it was a devastating and gruesome time (Reimann, 2016). The country was in shambles and ruins while Abraham Lincoln did his best to hold it together. On the battlefield, soldiers were giving up their lives for the freedom of other men. Brother fought against brother, family against family. The Civil War took more American lives than any other war in history

The Civil War is the most written about war in history (Reimann, 2016). Literature was immensiously important during this war. In fact a single book was claimed to have started the Civil War. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin dramatized the horrors of slavery. Slavery and the Civil War consumed American Literature. Books were set on the battlefields and told the tales of the violence and bloodshed that the war brought. However, books were not the only source of Civil War Literature. Many diaries and journals told of the same horrors and death, that always came with war (Reimann,

In addition stories were used as a distraction from the horrors of war. Many important accounts of the war were either diaries, journal entries or books on both the Confederate and the Union side. People like, William Lloyd Garrison vehemently spoke out against slavery. He was the author of The Liberator Newspaper, and he spoke so forcefully that it made fellow abolitionists uncomfortable. Many free blacks wrote as well such as Frederick Douglass. (Reimann, 2016). In his book My bondage and My Freedom he tells of what it feels like to be a slave. In writing that book Frederick Douglass helped encourage the flames of the