New Men examines the reentry into civilian life of Civil War soldiers and exposes a growing gap between how former soldiers saw themselves and the representations of them created by late-nineteenth-century American society. In the early years following the Civil War, the concept of the “veteran” functioned as a marker for what was assumed by soldiers and civilians alike to be a temporary social status that ended definitively with army demobilization and the successful attainment of civilian employment. Over time this term was reconstructed to represent a new identity distinct from that of the ... More

New Men examines the reentry into civilian life of Civil War soldiers and exposes a growing gap between how former soldiers saw themselves and the representations of them created by late-nineteenth-century American society. In the early years following the Civil War, the concept of the “veteran” functioned as a marker for what was assumed by soldiers and civilians alike to be a temporary social status that ended definitively with army demobilization and the successful attainment of civilian employment. Over time this term was reconstructed to represent a new identity distinct from that of the civilian population. Uncovering the tension between veterans and civilians in the postwar era adds a new dimension to our understanding of the legacy of the Civil War. Reconstruction involved more than simply the road to reunion and its attendant conflicts over race relations in the United States. It also pointed toward the frustrating search for a proper metaphor to explain what soldiers had endured. This halting search helps clarify the persistent description of the Civil War by literary critics as an unwritten war, and serves as a harbinger for our experience representing veterans today as they come home from the battlefield.