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More than 150 years after its end, we still struggle to understand the full extent of the human toll of the Civil War and the psychological crisis it created. In Aberration of Mind, Diane Miller Sommerville offers the first book-length treatment of suicide in the South during the Civil War era, giving us insight into both white and black communities, Confederate soldiers and their families, as well as the enslaved and newly freed. With a thorough examination of the dynamics of both racial and gendered dimensions of psychological distress, Sommerville reveals how the suffering experienced by Southerners living in a war zone generated trauma that, in extreme cases, led some Southerners to contemplate or act on suicidal thoughts. Sommerville recovers previously hidden stories of individuals exhibiting suicidal activity or aberrant psychological behavior she links to the war and its aftermath. This work adds crucial nuance to our understanding of how personal suffering shaped the way southerners viewed themselves in the Civil War era and underscores the full human costs of war.
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Keywords
- 1861–1877 (American Civil War period and the era of Reconstruction)
- American Civil War
- Civil war
- Confederate nationalism
- Confederate soldiers
- Confederate veterans
- Confederates
- Depression
- Emancipation
- freedmen and freedwomen
- gender
- History
- history of medicine
- History of the Americas
- Humanities
- Lost Cause
- Lunatic asylum
- manhood
- Masculinity
- Mental illness
- Military History
- paternalism
- Post-partum depression
- POWs
- PTSD
- Reconstruction
- Regional & national history
- Slaves
- southern women
- Suffering
- Suicide
- thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1K The Americas::1KB North America (USA and Canada)::1KBB United States of America, USA
- thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MN 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899::3MNQ Later 19th century c 1850 to c 1899::3MNQ-US-E c 1860 to c 1869
- thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MN 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899::3MNQ Later 19th century c 1850 to c 1899::3MNQS c 1860 to c 1869
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHK History of the Americas
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHW Military history::NHWF Early modern warfare (including gunpowder warfare)
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHW Military history::NHWR Specific wars and campaigns::NHWR3 Civil wars
- war trauma
Links
DOI: 10.5149/9781469643588_SommervilleEditions