Topsy-turvy - 9781566636322

"The Civil War overtook Southern children but did not overpower them. As this engaging, story-filled study shows, black and white children of the South lived through these fearful times with resourcefulness and amazing perception. Anya Jabour reveals children as sometimes victims of wartime violence and dislocation, but just as often as observers and participants. This first study of Confederate states children will be much read both for what it says about childhood and what it tells us about war. It is a compelling and well-researched history."ùSteven Stowe, author of Intimacy and Power in the Old South

"Sweeping from the late antebellum period to the aftermath of the war, with balanced coverage of both white and black children from across the South, Jabour's volume is wonderful social history that deepens our understanding of the trauma and positive consequences of the conflict. It is filled with apt quotations and sharp insights. Anyone interested in the history of women, gender, family, and slaveryùmuch less the Civil Warùshould read this book."ùJohn B. Boles, author of The South Through Time

"Children and youth living in the South belonged to the last group of white Americans to experience the sharp end of war. Anya Jabour offers a nuanced account of the myriad ways in which the Civil War exposed young Confederates and slaves to unprecedented dangers as well as opportunities, and challenged assumptions about family, race, sex roles, and social status."ùJames Marten, author of The Children's Civil War

Oh! Such cannonading on all sides, such shrieks and groans, such commotion of all kinds!" The teenaged Sue Chancellor, a Virginia planter's daughter, was writing in May 1863. "We thought that we were frightened before, but this was far beyond everything...Oh, the horror of that day!"

Sue's reaction to the Civil War around her was only one of the myriad responses to the conflict from childrenùboys and girls, black and white, slave and free, rich and poor. They experienced the war differently from adults, and their experiences were by no means uniform. In Topsy-Turvy, Anya Jabour brings into sharp relief how gender, race, slavery, and status shaped the lives of children in the American South before, during, and after the Civil War. She argues persuasively that the identities children developed in the antebellum era determined their responses to the upheavals of the war years and their lives afterward.

Even as Topsy-Turvy presents the Civil War as a major turning point in Southern children's lives, it also illuminates the interplay between continuity and change in the history of the American South. The war may have been a national tragedy, but it had an especially devastating effect on Southern soldiers, civilians, and communities. Because the conflict was fought largely on Southern soil, parts of the region became a "permanent landscape of war," and children in the Confederacy thus experienced the struggle in an especially profound and personal way.

Deeply researched, abundantly illustrated, and engagingly written, Topsy- Turvy is a major contribution to Southern history.