A conversation with Victoria E. Bynum Author of The Long Shadow
of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies Published
April 15, 2010 $35.00 hardcover, ISBN 978-0-8078-3381-0 Q. There
seems no end to books about the American Civil War. What does
The Long Shadow of the Civil War offer that is new? A. Although
Civil War books about the home front are not new, this is a new
sort of home front study that focuses on three communities from
three different states. Rather than close with the war and
Reconstruction, The Long Shadow of the Civil War follows
individual Unionists and multiracial families into the New South
era and, in some cases, into the twentieth century. This
historical sweep allows the reader to understand the ongoing
effects of the war at its most personal levels. Q. What led you
to combine three Civil War home fronts, all noted as areas of
violent disorder, in one study? Why these three? A. Most
basically, I combined them in order to provide in-depth
comparisons of the communities within the