Table of Contents

Introduction 1. "A Stage with Curtains Drawn": New England College Students and Their World 2. "The Great People of the Future": American Civilization and National Character 3. To Act Like Men: Building Character in the New Brahmins 4. "To Put Those Theories into Practice": Secession and The Crisis of Character 5. Marching into "Rebeldom": The Failure of Southern Character 6. The Character to Command 7. Character Triumphant: Reconstruction, Reform, and Reconciliation Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

A social history of the college-educated northerners who came of age in the 1850s and fought in the American Civil War

About the Author

Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of history at Angelo State University. He is co-editor (with Lorien Foote) of So Conceived and So Dedicated: Intellectual Life in the Civil War-Era North, also from Fordham University Press.

Reviews

"This important book is the first comprehensive study of a group of young men who provided vital leadership to the Union war effort and played key roles in the post-war United States. It makes a significant scholarly contribution to a variety of discussions regarding nationalism, social class, manhood, and the nature of leadership in the Union Army." -- -Lorien Foote Texas A&M University