Description
The American Civil War was epic – so epic in fact that when Americans of the era tried to comprehend it, they routinely turned to concepts of evil. General William Sherman claimed that war was “all hell,” and Frederick Douglass told northern audiences that slavery was from “the devil.” This presentation will look at everything from Abraham Lincoln’s speeches to letter envelopes, from the diaries of soldiers to the songs written to cheer the fight. Along the way, we’ll find that evil, devils, and demons were prominent in how Americans understood the war.
