:Blood and Irony: Southern White Women's Narratives of the Civil War, 1861–1937

Abstract

Literacy is a powerful weapon in war: when combatants utilize words to construct and disseminate meaning, they advocate a political vision, sway public opinion, and shape the historical record. The battle over interpretation—especially rendered through the written text—is as significant as the battle over human life, land, and resources. Sarah E. Gardner's study of southern white women's writing about the Civil War amply demonstrates the validity of these claims. More than anything else, Gardner's book shows how white southern women used private and public writing to fight for a white supremacist, patriarchal political order that they fervently believed should be the national model. “I am a totally unreconstructed Confederate,” Caroline Gordon, one of the novelists Gardner discusses, told an audience in 1974. “I came to believe … that the fact that we lost the Civil War was not only a disaster for the South but for the whole nation” (p. 262). Gordon's remarks indicate the pernicious resonance of the ideas Gardner uncovers.