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Edited by Brian Allen Drake. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015. 256 pp. $22.95).<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n From its initial clearing, the field of environmental history has yielded scholarship focused primarily on the western United States. During the past two decades, however, environmental historians have \u201crotated their crops\u201d and begun sowing seeds of southern environmental history. With hard work, patience, and a great deal of attention, those small seedlings have sprouted to produce a healthy harvest of works addressing the strong bond between nature and Dixie. Historians are now faced with new questions: Is the field of environmental history spacious and fertile enough to support the crops of other historical disciplines? Will bridging the gap between environmental and other types of history provide scholars on both sides with greater insight? The Blue, the Gray and the Green <\/em>is an essential first step in answering these questions.<\/span><\/p>\n Agricultural allusions aside, The Blue, the Gray and the Green <\/em>is an edited collection of articles which provide a suitable starting point for joining the studies of environmental and Civil War history. From studies of disease transmission between soldiers packed in crowded and unsanitary encampments to discussions of ideas about nature found in period literature, language, and landscape art, this work will undoubtedly help to close the gap between environmental and Civil War histories. In the book\u2019s introductory chapter, editor Brian Allen Drake expresses that this volume \u201cis not and will not be the final word on Civil War environmental history.\u201d Instead, it is meant to be \u201can opening statement in a historical conversation rich with possibility\u201d (12).<\/span><\/p>\n One can loosely separate the work\u2019s ten substantive articles (excluding the introduction and the epilogue) into three groups\u2014what Drake calls \u201cnonhuman nature,\u201d \u201cperception, ideology, and value,\u201d and \u201chybridity.\u201d The sum of all these parts amounts to a hearty list of talking points that will undoubtedly aid future discussions between environmental and Civil War historians. To effectively review this work, it will be most convenient to separate the articles into two \u201cbundles.\u201d One will address the articles that observe the environment\u2019s effect on the war.<\/span><\/p>\n The other will include those pieces that deal with the war\u2019s effect on the environment both physically and as an abstract concept.<\/span><\/p>\n Weather and climate, extreme desert conditions, environmental friction, and disease all exercised a degree of autonomy in shaping the events and outcome of the Civil War. While military historians often judge Union and Confederate commanders for questionable decisions which affected the outcome of battles, the chapters by Noe, Nelson, Brady, and Silver serve as important reminders that nature commanded a third and much more powerful force, one that was present at every engagement throughout the war. Inclement weather, harsh conditions, and \u201cacoustic shadows\u201d obstructed and obscured some commander\u2019s ability to effectively lead (149). Indeed, nature affected individual battles which, in turn, molded the outcome of the war itself.<\/span><\/p>\n Silver asserts that disease was an environmental factor which played a vital role throughout the war. Human and animal pathogens, like malaria and glanders, cut their way through both armies precipitating a massive loss of life. While these authors do not suggest that nature was the single determinant factor in the outcome of the Civil War, they argue that nature acted in concert with human decision-making and that the environment was undoubtedly present throughout the war.<\/span><\/p>\n While the environment influenced the war, the war also influenced the environment and how its observers perceived it. Turning first to the perceptions of nature, Aaron Sachs and John Iscoe both grappled with the way people have perceived nature and the war through landscape art and literature. Sachs draws a comparison between shattered trees and wounded veterans lamenting how both were \u201ccut down in their prime\u201d (96). He also compares antebellum and postbellum cemeteries, noting a deep connection between nature and death. On the other hand, Iscoe surveys antebellum literary representations of Appalachia as a refuge for runaway slaves, Union sympathizers, and weary soldiers. These articles reveal how the war changed American perceptions of nature and how Americans eventually developed an attitude of environmental conservation. While these authors still present nature as an active character in the story of the Civil War, it is in less direct and more abstract ways. This approach serves to widen the spectrum of environmental history and provides Civil War scholars an opportunity to address the environment\u2019s presence without standing squarely on the battlefield.<\/span><\/p>\n In his epilogue, Paul Sutter laments that Civil War historians have been cold to the union between environmental and military history (226). In a revealing comment that alludes to Drake\u2019s assertion that Civil War historians were moving away from narrow battlefield history to areas such as race and gender, Sutter stated that environmental historians \u201carrived to the field of battle just as many Civil War historians were retreating from it\u201d (226). Drake and Sutter\u2019s observations act as perfect summations of the distant relationship between military and environmental historians. This important volume, however, is a proper step toward the development of a more perfect union between the two fields. Its vast array of subject matter and approaches provide a number of useful starting points for scholars interested in studying the Civil War through the lens of environmental history, or vice-versa.<\/span><\/p>\n Andrew J. Franklin<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Blue, the Gray and the Green: Toward an Environmental History of the Civil War Edited by Brian Allen Drake. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015. 256 pp. $22.95). From its initial clearing, the field of environmental history has yielded scholarship focused primarily on the western United States. During the past two decades, however, environmental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":537,"featured_media":0,"parent":9801,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9834","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9834"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9837,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9834\/revisions\/9837"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/tuckasegeevalleyhistoricalreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Appalachian State University<\/span><\/p>\n