needs, interests, and experiences of going to war, fighting it, and making sense of it informed and directed politics, public life, social change, and cultural memory after the war’s end. In doing so, it shows that “the war” did not actually end with Lee’s surrenderat Appomattox and Lincoln’s assassination in Washington. As the contributors show, major issues remained, including defining “freedom”; rebuilding the South; integrating women and blacks into postwar society, culture, and polities; deciding the place of the military in public life; demobilizing or redeploying soldiers; organizing anew party system; and determining the scope and meanings of “union.”

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