The Children's Civil War

US: University of North Carolina, 2000. Paperback. As New. Children--white and black, northern and southern--endured a vast and varied range of experiences during the Civil War. Children celebrated victories a nd mourned defeats, tightened their belts and widened their responsibilitie s, took part in patriotic displays and suffered shortages and hardships, fl ed their homes to escape enemy invaders and snatched opportunities to run t oward the promise of freedom. Offering a fascinating look at how children were affected by our nation's g reatest crisis, James Marten examines their toys and games, their literatur e and schoolbooks, the letters they exchanged with absent fathers and broth ers, and the hardships they endured. He also explores children's politiciza tion, their contributions to their homelands' war efforts, and the lessons they took away from the war. Drawing on the childhoods of such diverse Amer icans as Jane Addams, Booker T. Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt, and on sources that range from diaries and memoirs to children's "amateur newspape rs," Marten examines the myriad ways in which the Civil War shaped the live s of a generation of American children. "An original-minded, skillfully and suggestively presented history, hauntin g in its detailed unfolding of a war that put so many already vulnerable yo ungsters in danger, but elicited from some of them, as well, impressively s ensitive, responsive thoughts, gestures, and deeds in what became, as this extraordinary book's title insists, their civil war.--Journal of American H istory "James Marten's thoroughly researched and engagingly written study . . . stands as one of the most exciting studies to emerge in the last dozen y.