Loyal Readers: Coastal Southern Newspapers Under Union Occupation in the Civil-War Era

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the content and ideology of Civil-War era newspapers that were published in the Confederacy, focusing on the coastal Atlantic areas under Union occupation. Such periodicals reveal a great deal about shifting Union war aims as well as the evolving agenda for the postwar South. This article argues that newspapers printed under Union occupation were early and important venues for discussions about suffrage, the possibilities of land redistribution, and other issues that would become central to the New South under Reconstruction.