A Study of Veteran Writing in American Civil War Novels

Abstract

 Situated within the broader context of postbellum American cultural politics, this study investigates how late-nineteenth-century veteran writing shaped national identity and military discourse. Utilizing a historical and textual analysis of Civil War veteran literary works, the research reveals how aging soldiers constructed the Civil War as the nation’s last authentic war. In doing so, veterans asserted a privileged claim to martial citizenship while restricting younger generations from acquiring comparable masculine legitimacy. This intergenerational contest over memory, heroism, and identity extended beyond literature into public discourse, political culture, and military ideology, continuing to influence understandings of military service through the era of overseas expansion and World War I. Ultimately, the study reinterprets veteran writing as a crucial site in the cultural production of postbellum American identity and historical memory