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Gettysburg Religion: Refinement, Diversity, and Race in the Antebellum and Civil War Border North by Steve Longenecker (review)

Gettysburg Religion: Refinement, Diversity, and Race in the Antebellum and Civil War Border North... pantheon by highlighting the symbolic importance of the martyred Stone- wall Jackson. Binnington’s discussion of the Worthy Southron and Demon Yankee tropes is well supported—though, by his own admission, it seems hardly surprising that a people seeking to create a new nation and fi ght for its survival would glorify themselves and vilify their enemies in these terms. His characterization of the Silent Slave seems more confusing because, as his own examples show, slaves did speak in these pages. Binnington argues that slave characters were “metaphorically silent” because they were inven- tions of white imagination and their words served an ideological and politi- cal purpose not their own (60). But, by these criteria, the Worthy Southron and Demon Yankee were also “silent” in that they too were puppets of their creators. Certainly, northerners would have found little that was authentic in what Confederate pens made them do or say. Binnington’s stated goal is “to reveal and to suggest” (15). What he reveals is plain: the presence of these recurrent tropes across a vari- ety of southern media, speaking to certain shared assumptions of white Confederates. How his work changes or challenges our larger understand- ing of Confederate nationalism is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of the Civil War Era University of North Carolina Press

Gettysburg Religion: Refinement, Diversity, and Race in the Antebellum and Civil War Border North by Steve Longenecker (review)

The Journal of the Civil War Era , Volume 5 (2) – May 7, 2015

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright @ The University of North Carolina Press
ISSN
2159-9807

Abstract

pantheon by highlighting the symbolic importance of the martyred Stone- wall Jackson. Binnington’s discussion of the Worthy Southron and Demon Yankee tropes is well supported—though, by his own admission, it seems hardly surprising that a people seeking to create a new nation and fi ght for its survival would glorify themselves and vilify their enemies in these terms. His characterization of the Silent Slave seems more confusing because, as his own examples show, slaves did speak in these pages. Binnington argues that slave characters were “metaphorically silent” because they were inven- tions of white imagination and their words served an ideological and politi- cal purpose not their own (60). But, by these criteria, the Worthy Southron and Demon Yankee were also “silent” in that they too were puppets of their creators. Certainly, northerners would have found little that was authentic in what Confederate pens made them do or say. Binnington’s stated goal is “to reveal and to suggest” (15). What he reveals is plain: the presence of these recurrent tropes across a vari- ety of southern media, speaking to certain shared assumptions of white Confederates. How his work changes or challenges our larger understand- ing of Confederate nationalism is

Journal

The Journal of the Civil War EraUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: May 7, 2015

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