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The summer of 2020 saw a global mobilization protesting the murder of George Floyd, during which statues glorifying white supremacy were toppled. Drawing on the narratives surrounding the removal of the Colston statue in Bristol and the Confederacy statues in New Orleans and Charlottesville, the paper examines the role of statues in the construction of political identities and social fantasies through Lacan's theory of anxiety. For Lacan, anxiety tells us what subjects identify as threatening or familiar is not a reflection of objective circumstances but individual desires. By proposing the concepts of working against anxiety and working with anxiety, the paper examines (1) fantasies that aim to re-establish the old narratives and identities that were challenged in the process of statue removal and (2) practices that dwell in the moment of anxiety in an attempt to repair historical violences. The paper makes three contributions: firstly, to the literature on anxiety, the paper shows why anxiety is not an emotion but a building block of subject formation. Secondly, to the literature on commemoration, the paper demonstrates how statues affirm some identities while negate others, re-producing (racialized) violence; and to the literature on resistance, the paper demonstrates how deeply entrenched anxieties continue to constrict social progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both sides in the U.S. Civil War financed military spending by issuing new fiat currencies. The Union 'greenback' underwent moderate inflation (by wartime standards), but the Confederate 'greyback' suffered hyperinflation. Existing explanations for these price movements typically treat only one of the two cases and adopt either a quantity theory or rational expectations approach. We compare Union and Confederate policies directly and highlight the importance of taxation for assuring the value of inconvertible money. Combining monetary and fiscal history literatures, we find that tax policies were determined by long-term development of democratic governing institutions. Higher levels of democracy in the North, as compared to the slaveholding South, meant greater tax policy legitimacy and administrative competence. The Union drew on this legacy to back its money effectively, while the Confederacy failed to do so. We contribute to credit theories of money by drawing attention to the political determinants of effective fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides fresh insight on the ways in which the American Civil War challenged and destabilized understandings of familial and gendered power within the Confederate States. It is well established that the impressive extent of the Confederacy's military mobilization significantly altered the gendered demographics and dynamics of the home front. While not rejecting this orthodox view, this article does challenge its tendency to overemphasize the extent to which the rural South was sapped of men. In doing so, it not only underscores the important roles some men, most notably those too old for military service, continued to play in ordinary households but also how this pattern unsettled familial power in terms of generation and age as well as gender. Finally, this article endeavors to excavate the more quotidian experience of Confederate common white families and, in order to do so, utilizes three microbiographies of specific households from the state of South Carolina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the roles and experiences of common soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. Particular focus is given to the motivations of volunteer soldiers in both the U.S. military and that of the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) According to the author, Confederate soldiers were largely driven by a desire to defend the institution of slavery and Southern conceptions of honor and civil rights, while Union soldiers saw themselves as defending the U.S. as an idea and as a unified political and economic entity. Details on the challenges of military life, including illness, boredom, and material deprivation, are presented. Changes in public opinion regarding the war are also discussed.

Rather than surrendering to Union forces in 1865, various bands of ex-Confederates chose Mexican exile. From generals and elite politicians to rank-and-file soldiers, the majority of these "Confederados" journeyed to French-controlled Mexico to escape punishment, to tap financial opportunities, and to observe how southern society would function post-emancipation. Still others, as represented by the cavalry officer and Quixotic newspaper editor John Newman Edwards, understood the U.S. Civil War on more international terms. To these men, Mexico constituted a new, imperially subsidized laboratory to continue the Confederate Experiment and recreate a mythic version of the Old South. Although cut short by the violent death of Emperor Maximilian I, their saga reveals not only how adaptation to Confederate defeat took different forms in the immediate postbellum period, but also the extent to which conceptions of defeat and even the purpose of the Confederacy itself had never been monolithic in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the role of southern women during the Civil War in the U.S. Services offered by women during the war; Focus of the Confederate public discussion of women's roles; Recognition of women as custodians of public and domestic culture in wartime.

The article explores the roles and experiences of noncombatant military laborers during the U.S. Civil War. Particular focus is given to labor performed by free and enslaved African Americans. According to the author, a key factor in the victory of the U.S. government over the Confederate States of America was its ability to attract black laborers in support of its cause. It is suggested that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was a strategic rather than a strictly humanitarian policy decision. Details on labor performed by white noncombatants, including engineers, blacksmiths, and laundresses, are also presented.

Southern states used their Confederate pension programs for several purposes. These state welfare programs served to bolster white supremacy, support Democratic party hegemony, and reinforce conservative gender roles. While male applicants for Confederate pensions were expected to demonstrate their continued loyalty to the "lost cause," female applicants were also examined for their sexual behavior. The Confederate welfare systems were thus heavily gendered. Although Southern whites embraced these welfare programs, they did not lead to Southern support for a federal welfare system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a few months in 1861, hundreds of communities in the South staged flag presentation ceremonies to send their men off to war. These ceremonies were attended by hundreds and sometimes thousands of white Southerners, and narratives of the ceremonies circulated widely in Southern newspapers. The ceremonies themselves consisted of a several speeches by local notables and presentation of a flag made by the elite women of the community. This article argues that flag presentations resulted from a distinct lack of commitment among most Southern men to the Confederacy early in the Civil War, and sees the ceremonies as coercive rituals designed to force men into the army before conscription solved the Confederacy's recruitment problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the experiences of Confederate nurses during the U.S. Civil War by applying time consciousness and multiple temporalities concepts. Gender, social and labor relations; Mobilization and evacuation of Confederate hospitals; Hospital administration.

Focuses on the institution of the office of chaplains as an official military organization of the Confederate Army during the era of the American Civil War. Social and political attitudes of Southern church leaders during the period; Rank of the Confederate chaplain; Duties; Salaries.

Examines the role of the cotton production in the Confederate states in its defeat in the U.S. civil war from 1861 to 1965. Purpose of slaves in the war; Reasons for the failure of the Confederate States of America to borrow money from Europe. Effect of the free trade of cotton on the Confederacy and price of cotton.