Unlike other Confederate armies at the conclusion of the Civil War, General Edmund Kirby Smith's Trans-Mississippi Army disbanded, often without orders, rather than surrender formally. Despite entreaties from military and civilian leaders to fight on, for Confederate soldiers west of the Mississippi River, the surrender of armies led by Generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston ended the war. After a significant decline in morale and discipline throughout the spring of 1865, soldiers of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department chose to break-up and return home. As compensation for months of unpaid service, soldiers seized both public and private property. Civilians joined the soldiers to create disorder that swept many Texas communities until the arrival of Federal troops in late June.

Louisiana's Red River region was shaped by and founded on the logic of racial power, the economics of slavery, and white supremacy. The alluvial soil provided wealth for the mobile, market-driven slaveholders but created a cold, brutal world for the commoditized slaves that cleared the land and cultivated cotton. Racial bondage defined the region, and slaveholders' commitment to mastery and Confederate doctrine continued after the Civil War. This work argues that when freedom arrived, this unbroken fidelity to mastery and to the inheritances and ideology of slavery gave rise to a visceral regime of violence. Continuity, not change, characterized the region. The Red River played a significant role in regional settlement and protecting this distorted racial dynamic. Racial bondage grounded the region's economy and formed the heart of white identity and black exploitation. Here, the long arcs of mastery, racial conditioning, and ideological continuities were deeply entrenched even as the nation underwent profound changes from 1820 to 1880. In this thesis, the election of 1860, the Civil War, and emancipation are not viewed as fundamental breaks or compartmentalized epochs in southern history. By contrast, on plantations along the Red River, both racial mastery and power endured after emancipation. Based on extensive archival research, this thesis considers how politics, racial ideologies, and environmental and financial drivers impacted the nature of slavery, Confederate commitment, and the parameters of freedom in this region, and by extension, the nation. Widespread Reconstruction violence climaxed with the Colfax Massacre and firmly cemented white power, vigilantism, and racial dominance within the regional culture. Freedpeople were relegated to the margins as whites reasserted their control over Reconstruction. The violent and contested nature of freedom highlighted the adherence to the power structure and ideological inheritances of slavery. From bondage to freedom, the Red River region remained unreconstructed.

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Cette thèse s'intéresse aux Créoles de couleur de la Nouvelle-Orléans et montre que leur relation avec les affranchis entre 1860 et 1896 était ambiguë, marquée à la fois par la solidarité et par la division. Précisément parce que le rapport entre les deux groupes pouvait prendre plusieurs formes, nous avons mis le mot « relation » au pluriel dans le titre. Pendant longtemps, les historiens ont eu tendance à appréhender la relation entre les deux groupes d'un point de vue dichotomique. D'après leurs analyses, les Créoles de couleur étaient soit solidaires et unis aux Noirs, soit condescendants et distants, selon qu'ils s'identifiaient ou non à eux. Comme l'explique Shirley Thompson, pratiquement tous ont abordé cette relation en fonction d'un jugement sur l'identification raciale des Créoles de couleur et malgré les nuances apportées récemment par certains, le débat historiographique reste polarisé à bien des égards pour la simple raison que le sentiment d'appartenance identitaire des Créoles de couleur échappe à leur analyse. Afin de combler cette lacune historiographique, nous proposons une approche plus flexible des relations raciales, que nous abordons en nous détachant du paradigme binaire prédominant et en concevant davantage les Créoles de couleur comme un groupe ethnique à part entière. Notre thèse a donc été conçue dans le but de nuancer la vision dichotomique perpétuée par les historiens et de mettre en évidence la complexité de la relation entre les deux groupes, surtout au moment où les esclaves faisaient la transition vers la liberté. La base de notre argumentation repose sur la prémisse que les Créoles de couleur étaient conscients d'appartenir à un groupe distinct et supérieur aux Noirs, à qui ils ne se sont jamais identifiés, mais cela ne les a pas empêchés de nouer un lien de solidarité avec eux durant la guerre de Sécession afin de réaliser leurs aspirations politiques et humanitaires. Pour la première fois, à partir des années 1860, il y eut un rapprochement entre les deux collectivités puisque les Créoles de couleur ont saisi l'occasion provoquée par la guerre pour entamer un mouvement de revendications progressistes qui incluait la majorité noire, mais cette nouvelle solidarité ne doit pas être interprétée comme étant un signe qu'ils s'identifiaient désormais aux affranchis. Malgré un rapprochement devenu nécessaire durant et après la guerre de Sécession, les Créoles de couleur voulaient continuer à se dissocier des Noirs parce qu'ils avaient intériorisé les préjugés raciaux de leur époque, mais aussi parce que, conscients de leurs différences identitaires, ils voulaient survivre comme groupe ethnique à part entière dans une société qui s'américanisait rapidement à partir de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle. Entre 1860 et 1896, ils ont lutté pour la justice sociale et pour la mise en application des idéaux révolutionnaires auxquels ils adhéraient totalement, mais ils ont lutté aussi pour ne pas devenir un « peuple oublié » dans une masse noire anglophone. Leur combat était double : répandre les principes universels et protéger un patrimoine identitaire de plus en plus fragile. Bien que cette thèse porte sur la relation entre les deux groupes, elle permet de tirer des conclusions intéressantes sur l'identité des Créoles de couleur. D'un point de vue méthodologique, nous avons opté pour une démarche à la fois qualitative et quantitative qui repose sur un corpus de sources variées, allant du journalisme, au recensement, aux poursuites judiciaires, en passant par les récits de contemporains. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Louisiane, Nouvelle-Orléans, Créoles de couleur, guerre de Sécession, Reconstruction.

The United States Civil War continues to be an intriguing aspect of history to both scholar and layperson. In light of this broad interest, the relatively small amount of scholarly study of music created by American composers during these years is conspicuous. One of the war's significant composers, both in relationship to the composition and publication of songs in America, was George Frederick Root. Not only were Root's compositions numerous, several pieces assumed major positions in the ongoing sociopolitical musings of a nation seeking to process these turbulent years. This document explores Root's development and productivity as a Civil War era composer and publisher. It also considers his music as representative of the scores of popular compositions that reflected the spirit, artistry, politics, religion, and social processing by the people of the United States of America during one of the most defining periods of its relatively short existence.Chapter one serves as an introduction. It identifies the context, scope, methodology, and delimitation of the study.Chapter two provides a brief overview of the social and cultural climate of the country at the time of the Civil War. It identifies how various forms of artistic expression carried the war directly into private parlors and public squares. More specifically, it discusses the role of parlor songs not only as an important cultural expression for the nation, but also as a valuable commodity for composers and publishers of music such as George Frederick Root.Chapter three describes the developmental years of Root as a composer and businessman. From Willow Farm to the first Normal Music Institute, Root built a foundation of experience and skill that set the scene for a significant impact upon American culture. Influenced by musicians such as Lowell Mason, Louis Gottschalk, and Stephen Foster, his musical landscape was diverse and deeply rooted in the language of popular culture. George Root partnered with his brother Ebenezer Root and business associate Cauncey Cady at the Chicago-based publishing firm of Root and Cady to provide a production and delivery system for music that infiltrated all areas of the country.Chapter four is a collection of Root's thirty-six vocal Civil War parlor songs published by the Root and Cady Publishing Company. The songs are reproduced from the original sheet music. Each song is summarized and the entire collection is analyzed based upon musical and textual considerations.Chapter five provides a summary of this project as well as questions for further study. / School of Music

The United States government began paying pensions to disabled Union veterans before the Civil War ended in April 1865. By 1890 its pension programs included any Union veteran who had fought in the Civil War, regardless of his financial means, as well as surviving family members, including mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. Union veterans did not hesitate to "wave the bloody shirt" in their attempts to liberalize pension laws. Pension programs for Confederate veterans were much slower to develop. Lacking any higher organization, each southern state assumed the responsibility of caring for disabled and/or indigent Confederate veterans and widows. Texas began paying Confederate pensions in 1899, Georgia in 1888 and Virginia in 1889. Unlike Texas, Georgia and Virginia provided artificial limbs for their veterans long before they started paying pensions. At the time of his enlistment in the 1860s, the typical future pensioner was twenty-five years of age, and fewer than half were married heads of households. Very few could be considered wealthy and most were employed in agriculture. The pensioners of Georgia, Texas, and Virginia were remarkably similar, although there were some differences in nativity and marital status. They were all elderly and needy by the time they asked for assistance from their governments. The Confederate pension programs emerged about the same time the Lost Cause began to gain popularity. This movement probably had more influence in Georgia and Virginia than in Texas. Texas tended more to look to the future rather than the past, and although Confederate veterans dominated its legislature for years, its pension program could not be called generous. The Civil War pension programs died out with the veterans and widows they were designed to care for and did not evolve directly into any other programs. Because they helped to remove the stigma of receiving government aid (state or federal), The pension programs served as precedents for future social programs.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / After governing Indiana during the Civil War, Oliver P. Morton acquired great national influence as a Senator from 1867 to 1877 during Reconstruction. He advocated for African American suffrage and proper remembrance of the Union cause. When he died in 1877, political colleagues, family members, and many Union veterans recalled Morton’s messages and used the occasion to reflect on the nation’s memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction. This thesis examines Indiana’s Governor and Senator Oliver P. Morton, using his postwar speeches, public commentary during and after his life, and the public testimonials and monuments erected in his memory to analyze his role in defining Indiana’s historical memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction from 1865 to 1907. The eulogies and monument commemoration ceremonies reveal the important reciprocal relationship between Morton and Union veterans, especially Indiana members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). As the GAR’s influence increased during the nineteenth century, Indiana members used Morton’s legacy and image to promote messages of patriotism, national unity, and Union pride. The monuments erected in Indianapolis and Washington, D. C., reflect Indiana funders’ desire to remember Morton as a Civil War Governor and to use his image to reinforce viewers’ awareness of the sacrifices and results of the war. This thesis explores how Morton’s friends, family, political colleagues, and influential members of the GAR emphasized Morton’s governorship to use his legacy as a rallying point for curating and promoting partisan memories of the Civil War and, to a lesser extent, Reconstruction, in Indiana.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Kimblerlin Family, first white settlers of Scott County, Indiana is used as a focal point to study the impact of the Copperhead movement on southern Indiana during the Civil War. The author has been granted acces to dozens of family letters, to and from the battlefield, that have never been subjected to academic scrutiny. They provide a fascinating mirror that reflects cultural attitudes toward the War, and ultimately, the courage it took to stand firmly for the Union in Copperhead country. / This is the story of the Kimberlin Family that sent 33 fathers and sons, brothers and cousins to fight for the Union cause during the Civil War. Ten family members were killed, wounded, or died of battlefield disease, a 30 percent casualty rate that is unmatched in recorded Scott County history. Of the 134 known deaths of Scott County soldiers, ten were members of the Kimberlin clan. While we know that the Kimberlins suffered disproportionately, our only clues to their feelings about the war come from 40 letters to and from the battlefield that have survived to this day. Were they fighting to save the Union or to free the slaves? How did they express grief over the loss of a brother? Did they keep up with their business and the women at home? And what did they think about “secesh” neighbors in southern Indiana who tried to undermine the Union cause? The answers to these questions will help determine if the Kimberlins were unusual in their patriotism or simply acting as any Union family would in an area of the nation known as Copperhead Country

The Private Law of Emergency traces the development of the American law of contract in response to four emergencies that occurred between 1860-1940 – the Civil War, World War I, the 1918 pandemic, and the Great Depression. It traces the development of an idea – that the purpose of the law of contract is to preserve certain features of civil society and in this way guard against the corrosive effects of emergency on that society. The thesis explores three broad themes; first, that private law provides a means by which courts have managed the resolution of an emergency; second, that that the way courts have applied private law in response to emergency can tell us something about the true values underlying private law; and third, that the way courts have applied private law in response to emergency tells us something about the public law of emergency – and in particular, the capacity of emergency powers to affect private rights. The thesis considers these developments in the context of parallel developments in legal method – most particularly, the rise of formalism in private law – in the law of equity, and in the positioning of commerce as central to the maintenance of the legitimacy of the American constitutional system across this period. It demonstrates that these developments have suppressed the early tendency of the common law to operate as a form of emergency law.