Daily Life in Civil War America. By Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo. Daily Life Through History. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, 1998. xviii + 321 pgs.
The Civil War has been the most voluminously and perhaps most dynamically written about topic in American history. For one-hundred- fifty ears professional and amateur historians alike have been documenting aspects of the conflict and era to the detail of extreme minutia, and unfortunately many poor contributions have been added to the historiography of the conflict by careless authors.
Daily Life in Civil War America is one such work. Dorothy Denneen and James M. Volo are history teachers, living history enthusiasts, and co-authors of several books on daily life in various eras of American history. Their 1998 volume Daily Life in Civil War America is essentially a mentalité history of the day-to-day minutia of existence in the Civil War era. It reads as an encyclopedic reference manual on daily life, activities, and experiences of Americans during the Civil War. Topics covered in the work are the minutia of soldiers’ lives from diet, clothing, combat experiences, equipment, religion, to children at war, as well as topics concerning civilians ranging from the layout of the Civil War era homestead, the role of newspapers and literature in the era, diet, clothing and fashion, the work week of slaves, to the daily lives of men, women, and children on the homefront. Several topics are detailed from the macro perspective, including politics of the era, immigration, abolition, and secession.
However, the many glaring flaws that haunt the book are largely the result of misinterpretations of history by the authors, perhaps deriving from a failure to stay up to date on the ongoing historiographical conversation on the Civil War. Many issues plague Daily Life in Civil War America, from simple misstatements of facts to more serious errors often committed by amateur historians. The first of which is the authors’ failure to understand the past on its own terms. The authors frequently judge characters of the era, and often over generalize sentiments of the era by taking samples of the words or attitudes of one individual and applying them to all characters involved in the Civil War.
Lack of depth on all issues riddle the work, from simple flaws in the military life and tactics sections, to overgeneralization of life on the home front, to a poorly simplistic summary of the role of religion in Civil War era culture. Specifically, the Volo’s chapters on the homestead in the Civil War era generally summarizes physical aspects of upper class white homes, and applies them to the homes of all white Americans; this demonstrates the authors’ poor understanding of economic and social class in mid-nineteenth century America. The authors’ treatment of strategy in the Civil War largely ignores historiographical revelations since before the 1990s. The authors make such errors as to claim that the eastern theatre was the most consequential of the war, though several historians have argued that the western theatre deserves that distinction. The authors also ignore historiographical debates over the Napoleonic nature of the tactics as opposed to modern nature of combat in the Civil War, as well as debates concerning the rifled musket, to name a few of many flaws. The authors’ superficial treatment of women in the Civil War era also essentially mocks modern historiographical efforts to analyze gender in American history, as the only topics of consequent pertaining to women in the era concern fashion and homemaking, rather than economic or humanitarian activity. Even such famous female characters as Rose O’Neal Greenhow are missing from the pages of Daily Life in Civil War America. Also disturbing is the tendency of the authors to rely on their own experiences as Civil War re-enactors, as several academic reviewers mentioned in professional reviews of the work. At several points in the book, the authors even go so far as to substitute period photographs with modern day photographs of Civil War re-enactments to support claims.
Though any book on daily life during the Civil War has great potential, the Volo’s work fails to fulfill expectations. One reviewer simply said of the work that, “The realities of civilian life and everyday experiences will continue to attract the attention of scholars for years to come. Unfortunately, Daily Life in Civil War America contributes little to the field. (Lisa Tendrich Frank, University of Florida. Civil War History, Volume 46, Number 2, June 2000, pgs 175-176.)” Some redemptive value may be found in use of the work as an encyclopedic reference manual of the Civil War era; however the authors’ words are far too brief on most subjects to fully justify the use of Daily Life in Civil War America as an informative encyclopedia for anyone with less than the most basic knowledge of the Civil War era of American history.
-Jonathan Jones