The Southern Exodus to Mexico: Migration across the Borderlands after the American Civil War. By Todd W. Wahlstrom.

Abstract

The Southern Exodus to Mexico: Migration across the Borderlands after the American Civil War . Borderlands and Transcultural Studies Series. By Todd W. Wahlstrom . (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. xxix + 190 pp. Illustrations, map, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $55.00, CAN$68.95, £36.00.) Todd W. Wahlstrom’s The Southern Exodus to Mexico is a novel effort to rethink the historical role played by Southern migrants who exited the United States for Mexico following the Civil War. Until now, the historiography has held that when Southern exiles went to Mexico and curried the favor of Maximillian—the French emperor in Mexico—they simply sought to recast parts of Veracruz as a new South, but Wahlstrom pushes back against this view. While that first wave of migrants did indeed include many Confederates-cum-royalists who courted the transplanted Hapsburgs … jnichols{at}qcc.cuny.edu