Clio and America's Civil War

This project examines the place of historical thought and historical representation in the build up to, and event and aftermath of, America's Civil War. A religiously tinged republicanism and a politicized millenarianism informed much of the antebellum abolitionist and the proslavery anti-abolitionist rhetoric and the arrival of the war intensified chiliastic sentiment. While the apocalypticism continued throughout the war, widespread destruction dampened hopes of Christ’s return. Perhaps the impact of the Civil War on American historical consciousness can be profitably compared to the French Revolution’s impact on European historical consciousness.