Brooks D. Simpson

"The final months of the Confederacy offer fascinating opportunities - as a case study in war termination, as a period that shaped the initial circumstances of Reconstruction, and as a lens through which to analyze Southern society at its most stressful moment. The Collapse of the Confederacy collects six essays that explore how popular expectations, national strategy, battlefield performance, and Confederate nationalism affected Confederate actions during the final months of the conflict."--BOOK JACKET.

In this lively work of revisionism, Brooks D. Simpson offers a new understanding of Henry Adams's political career, looking beyond the oft-quoted Education of Henry Adams to discover the historian, journalist, and political gadfly as he truly was. In doing so, Simpson challenges portrayals presented by Adams's many biographers and reassesses positions of major historians. He demonstrates the unreliability of The Education as a factual account of post-Civil War American politics, cautions those who represent Adams as a typical political reformer, and discusses why Adams's fervent desire to achieve political success ended in abject failure. Arguing that Adams sought political influence and power, not office, Simpson follows the young republican's struggle to reconcile the dictates of family heritage with his own personal inclinations by carving out a career as a political journalist and behind-the-scenes manipulator of reform politics. But his arrogance and sarcasm, according to Simpson, doomed him to offend the very people he sought to influence and forced him to the margins of the reform movement. Simpson contends that even as Adams wrote about his failure in The Education of Henry Adams, he sought to conceal its true causes behind a facade of witty, derisive remarks about American politics and politicians. In contrast, Simpson places the blame for Adams's failure squarely on Adams himself, concluding that personality rather than politics thwarted his promising career.

Historians have traditionally drawn distinctions between Ulysses S. Grant's military and political careers. This book questions such distinctions and offers a new understanding of this often enigmatic leader. The author argues that during the 1860s Grant was both soldier and politician, for military and civil policy were inevitably intertwined during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. According to the author, Grant instinctively understood that war was 'politics by other means.' Moreover, he realized that civil wars presented special challenges: reconciliation, not conquest, was the Union's ultimate goal. And in peace, Grant sought to secure what had been won in war, stepping in to assume a more active role in policymaking when the intransigence of white Southerners and the obstructionist behavior of President Andrew Johnson threatened to spoil the fruits of Northern victory.

During and after the Civil War, four presidents faced the challenge of reuniting the nation and of providing justice for black Americans - and of achieving a balance between those goals. This first book to collectively examine the Reconstruction policies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes reveals how they confronted and responded to the complex issues presented during that contested era in American politics. Brooks Simpson examines the policies of each administration in depth and evaluates them in terms of their political, social, and institutional contexts. Simpson explains what was politically possible at a time when federal authority and presidential power were more limited than they are now. He compares these four leaders' handling of similar challenges - such as the retention of political support and the need to build a southern base for their policies - in different ways and under different circumstances, and he discusses both their use of executive power and the impact of their personal beliefs on their actions.

In Union and Emancipation, seven leading historians offer new perspectives on the issues of race and politics in American Society from the antebellum era to the aftermath of Reconstruction. The authors, all trained by Richard H. Sewell at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, address two major themes: the politics of sectional conflict prior to the Civil War, illuminated through ideological and institutional inquiry; and the central importance of race, slavery, and emancipation in shaping American political culture and social memory. Contributors consider the national culture, the centrality of the nation-state in understanding American history, the place of race in redefining what it meant to be an American, the way the Civil War helped to redefine the nature of the 'political,' and of 'citizenship,' and the significance of political parties through the ideas and interests that motivate them. The collection, with its dual themes of union and emancipation, will provoke debate, offer insight, and challenge recent interpretations of this turbulent period in American history.

"Brooks D. Simpson's The Civil War in the East [discusses] the strategies employed by the Union and Confederacy in the East, offering a more integrated interpretation of military operations that shows how politics, public perception, geography, and logistics shaped the course of the military operations in the East"--Jacket.

Pt. 1: Prospect and retrospect- two contemporary views; Pt. 2: Negro suffrage, pro and con; Pt. 3 : Economic approaches; Pt. 4: An American tragedy.