Oct 03, 2024  
BC3 Academic Catalog: 2023-2024 
    
BC3 Academic Catalog: 2023-2024 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

HIST 220 - American Civil War

3 Credits: (3 lecture)

Course Description
This course will explore the causes, path, consequences, and legacy of the American Civil War covering the time frame of the Antebellum Period through Reconstruction. Key political, social, and economic issues will be analyzed as both triggers and developments throughout the duration of the Civil War Era.

Note Fall semester only. 

Text
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. 1st ed. New York: Oxford, 2003. Print.

Objectives
The student will be able to:

A. Explain the basic concepts surrounding the Civil War including its causes and consequences.

B. Explain the economic, social and political impact the Civil War has had upon American history to the present

C. Demonstrate skills in analyzing secondary and primary sources for historical research

Content
A. A review of early American history as it pertains to the coming of the American Civil War including but not limited to the issues of slavery and state’s rights.

B. The impact of the war on social institution in both the North and the South, including but not limited to family structure, labor, economics, and demographic changes.

C. Political and military stages of the conflict, concentrating on theaters of war and the life of a soldier in both the North and the South.

D. Contributions the American Civil War made to both the Reconstruction period and after on both a positive and negative level.

Student Evaluation
Evaluation will include periodic testing, final examination, and discussion and participation. Special projects may also be included at the instructor’s discretion.

Bibliography
Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.

—. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. New York: Harper and Row, 1988. Print.

Freeman, Douglas S. Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001. Print.

Geary, James W. We Need Men: The Union Draft Riot in the Civil War. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1991. Print.

Genovese, Eugene D. The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South. New York: Pantheon Books, 1965. Print.

Gienapp, William E. The Republican Party and the Slave Power, in Robert H. Abzug and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds., New Perspectives on Race and Slavery in America: Essays in Honor of Kenneth M. Stampp. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986. Print.

Goodwin, Doris K. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005. Print.

Higginson, Thomas W. Army Life in a Black Regiment: and Other Writings, New York: Penguin Classics; Reissue edition, 1997. Print.

McPherson, James M. Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.

Paludan, Philip Shaw. A People’s Contest: The Union and Civil War, University of Kansas, 1996. Print.

Pettit, Frederick, Infantryman Pettit: the Civil War letters of Corporal Frederick Pettit, late of Company C, 100th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment, “The Roundheads,” 1862-1864, Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Publishing Company, 1990. Print.

Pfanz, Harry W. Gettysburg: The Second Day, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. Print.

Rable, George C. The Confederate Republic, New York: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. Print.

Rubin, Anna Sarah. A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy 1861-1868, University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Print.

Sears, Stephen W. Chancellorsville, New York: Mariner Books, 1996. Print.

Shaara, Michael. The Killer Angels. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993. Print.

Smith, John David ed. Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Print.

Wert, Jeffrey D. General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Print.

Wert, Jeffrey D. Mosby’s Rangers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Print.