William Gilmore Simms's Unfinished Civil War

William Gilmore Simmss Unfinished Civil War measures the effects of the Civil War and its aftermath on one of the Old Souths foremost intellectuals. Simmss mid-nineteenth century poems, novels, and essays and the personal and societal trauma and destruction Simms experienced are all portrayed here. Before the war Simms was the most articulate advocate of Southern nationalism. During the war he became a prophetic critic of Confederate policy and poet of cultural ethnogenesis. The defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 shattered Simmss understanding of the working of history and called into question his sense of a moral providence. This collection of essays by historians and literary scholars first explores William Gilmore Simmss antebellum treatment of the role of warfare in Americas past and the Souths future. The contributors then consider the impact of the secession crisis, the Civil War, and the Confederate defeat on Simmss and other white and black Southerners perceptions of their much-changed world. Next Simmss life, published writings, and thoughts during the war and its aftermath are examined. Finally Simmss late poetry and fictions, especially explicit and implicit commentaries on the postwar South, are analysed. His last oration, The Sense of the Beautiful, published shortly before his death in 1870, is the subject of several essays. William Gilmore Simmss Unfinished Civil War reconstructs from both published writings and private letters the conscious and unconscious effects of the Civil War upon the writer and Southern patriot. Drawing on the fields of history, literature, and even archaeology, this interdisciplinary volume demonstrates that the anticipation, course, and consequences of the war were central in shaping Simmss writings from the 1840s to 1870.