About the Author

Stuart McConnell is associate professor of history at Pitzer College.

Reviews

�D�emonstrates that the most interesting part of a war may well be what happens long after the guns fall silent."Journal of American History"

�E�xtremely well written and a worthwhile contribution to the historiography of Gilded Age politics and culture. "Southern Historian"

Thoughtful, gracefully written, and imbued with sly humor, this book tells us much about the Civil War.Reid Mitchell, author of "Civil War Soldiers"

"Thoughtful, gracefully written, and imbued with sly humor, this book tells us much about the Civil War.Reid Mitchell, author of "Civil War Soldiers""

[D]emonstrates that the most interesting part of a war may well be what happens long after the guns fall silent."Journal of American History"

[E]xtremely well written and a worthwhile contribution to the historiography of Gilded Age politics and culture. "Southern Historian"

Provocative social history."Library Journal"

Stuart McConnell's fine book is a welcome addition to this literature. "Reviews in American History"

YDemonstrates that the most interesting part of a war may well be what happens long after the guns fall silent.

"Journal of American History"

YExtremely well written and a worthwhile contribution to the historiography of Gilded Age politics and culture.

"Southern Historian"

Thoughtful, gracefully written, and imbued with sly humor, this book tells us much about the Civil War.

Reid Mitchell, author of "Civil War Soldiers"

"Thoughtful, gracefully written, and imbued with sly humor, this book tells us much about the Civil War.

Reid Mitchell, author of "Civil War Soldiers""

[D]emonstrates that the most interesting part of a war may well be what happens long after the guns fall silent.

"Journal of American History"

[E]xtremely well written and a worthwhile contribution to the historiography of Gilded Age politics and culture.

"Southern Historian"

Provocative social history.

"Library Journal"

Stuart McConnell's fine book is a welcome addition to this literature.

"Reviews in American History"

In a scholarly tome, McConnell, a history professor at Pitzer College in California, draws on an exhaustive synthesis of archival and published sources to challege the stereotype of the Grand Army of the Republic, the largest Union Army veterans' organization, as a flag-waving pressure group focussing on veterans' pensions and Republican politics. He depicts instead an organization that rapidly shed its partisan, quasi-military nature to develop along lines of typical Gilded Age fraternal orders. Loyal GAR lodges were centers of business as well as fellowship, while the national organization focused on ideals of self-sacrifice and comradeship as manifested in wartime service. Restricted to Union veterans, the membership held a preservationist vision of American identity and an increasingly sentimentalized view of the Civil War. The GAR enjoyed three decades of ``glorious contentment'' before being overtaken by the realities of the new century. Illustrated. (June)