LEADER 04834nam 2200649Ia 450 001 9910789615803321 005 20220318224121.0 010 $a0-8014-5801-3 010 $a0-8014-5925-7 024 7 $a10.7591/9780801459252 035 $a(CKB)2670000000081006 035 $a(OCoLC)726824317 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10457675 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000482880 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11317874 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000482880 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10529350 035 $a(PQKB)11701239 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse28919 035 $a(DE-B1597)478242 035 $a(OCoLC)979590579 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780801459252 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3138053 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10457675 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL681686 035 $a(OCoLC)922998111 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3138053 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000081006 100 $a20071120d2008 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aAwaiting the heavenly country$b[electronic resource] $ethe Civil War and America's culture of death /$fMark S. Schantz 210 $aIthaca $cCornell University Press$dc2008 215 $a1 online resource (263 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 0 $a1-322-50404-0 311 0 $a0-8014-3761-X 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tList of Illustrations --$tAcknowledgments --$tIntroduction --$tChapter One. "Emblems of Mortality" --$tChapter Two. "The Heavenly Country" --$tChapter Three. "Melancholy Pleasure" --$tChapter Four. "A Voice from the Ruins" --$tChapter Five. "Better to Die Free, Than to Live Slaves" --$tChapter Six. "The Court of Death" --$tEpilogue --$tNotes --$tIndex 330 $a"Americans came to fight the Civil War in the midst of a wider cultural world that sent them messages about death that made it easier to kill and to be killed. They understood that death awaited all who were born and prized the ability to face death with a spirit of calm resignation. They believed that a heavenly eternity of transcendent beauty awaited them beyond the grave. They knew that their heroic achievements would be cherished forever by posterity. They grasped that death itself might be seen as artistically fascinating and even beautiful."-from Awaiting the Heavenly Country How much loss can a nation bear? An America in which 620,000 men die at each other's hands in a war at home is almost inconceivable to us now, yet in 1861 American mothers proudly watched their sons, husbands, and fathers go off to war, knowing they would likely be killed. Today, the death of a soldier in Iraq can become headline news; during the Civil War, sometimes families did not learn of their loved ones' deaths until long after the fact. Did antebellum Americans hold their lives so lightly, or was death so familiar to them that it did not bear avoiding? In Awaiting the Heavenly Country, Mark S. Schantz argues that American attitudes and ideas about death helped facilitate the war's tremendous carnage. Asserting that nineteenth-century attitudes toward death were firmly in place before the war began rather than arising from a sense of resignation after the losses became apparent, Schantz has written a fascinating and chilling narrative of how a society understood death and reckoned the magnitude of destruction it was willing to tolerate. Schantz addresses topics such as the pervasiveness of death in the culture of antebellum America; theological discourse and debate on the nature of heaven and the afterlife; the rural cemetery movement and the inheritance of the Greek revival; death as a major topic in American poetry; African American notions of death, slavery, and citizenship; and a treatment of the art of death-including memorial lithographs, postmortem photography and Rembrandt Peale's major exhibition painting The Court of Death. Awaiting the Heavenly Country is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the Civil War and the ways in which antebellum Americans comprehended death and the unimaginable bloodshed on the horizon. 606 $aDeath$xSocial aspects$zUnited States$xHistory$y19th century 606 $aWar and society$zUnited States$xHistory$y19th century 607 $aUnited States$xHistory$yCivil War, 1861-1865$xCasualties$xSocial aspects 615 0$aDeath$xSocial aspects$xHistory 615 0$aWar and society$xHistory 676 $a973.7/1 700 $aSchantz$b Mark S$g(Mark Saunders),$f1955-$01523058 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910789615803321 996 $aAwaiting the heavenly country$93763126 997 $aUNINA