The Civil War and the Trans-Mississippi West
Abstract
This volume will contain essays from the participants in a 2013-2014 symposium on the political, social, and cultural aspects of the Civil War Era as experienced across the Mississippi River. How do events in the American West change our understanding of the Civil War era? This essays will examine the lives, choices, politics, and creations in the region between the outbreak of the U.S. War with Mexico and the retreat from Reconstruction, including the choices and consequences for American Indian nations; Mormon communities; residents of California, New Mexico and Confederate Arizona; cross-border interaction with Canada and Mexico; African Americans and other racial minorities in the West; and examines the governance of newly organized federal territories. This volume will place the West on an equal footing with the North and South in the history of the era of Civil War and Reconstruction, re-envisioning the war as a tri-sectional conflict.