New Book Annoucement: Obstinate Heroism

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H-CivWar New Book Annoucement: Obstinate Heroism Discussion published by Steven Ramold on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 Steven J. Ramold, Obstinate Heroism: The Confederate Surrenders after Appomattox (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2020). https://untpress.unt.edu/catalog/3881 Even as Ulysses S. Grant accepted Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, the American Civil War raged on in other parts of the Confederacy. Thousands of Confederate soldiers, in three large armies and in countless detached commands, represented the potential to continue the war for the foreseeable future. Instead of fighting, however, the commanders of the three Confederate armies chose to surrender, inducing the smaller contingents to do so as well. The process still entailed some bloody clashes, but the decision by senior Confederate officers to accept Union victory prevented a prolonged and unnecessary hardship for many in the Southern states. In Obstinate Heroism, Steven Ramold explores whey the senior Confederate commanders (Joseph Johnston, Richard Taylor, and Edmund Kirby Smith) opted to capitulate rather than continue after the loss of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. By comparing and contrasting their respective circumstances, Ramold shows why each Confederate general, in the face of varying levels of Union opposition, all came to the same conclusion that continued resistance provided no benefit to their cause of independence. All commanders sought honorable terms under which they could surrender their troops, providing a justification for their actions in the absence of guidance from the Confederate government. “Ramold deftly surveys the unraveling of the social, cultural, political, and military strands that held the Confederacy together for so long after any reasonable hope of victory had faded.”—Kenneth J. Winkle, Sorensen Professor of American History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln “Obstinate Heroism offers the best scholarly explanation of why and how Confederates ingloriously yet often grudgingly succumbed to defeat after Lee’s surrender. It is a complex and far-reaching story—stretching from the Carolinas to Alabama and the trans-Mississippi—revealing the Union military’s merciless pressures on desperate Confederate soldiers, commanders, political leaders, and civilians, who gradually crumbled and finally failed in their stubborn fight for independence.” –T. Michael Parrish, author of Richard Taylor: Soldier Prince of Dixie and co-editor of Brothers in Gray “Ramold’s detailed analysis shows clearly that, for the Confederacy, starting the Civil War was far easier than ending it.”—William B. Feis, author of Grant's Secret Service: The Intelligence War from Belmont to Appomattox Steven J. Ramold is Professor of American History at Eastern Michigan University. Citation: Steven Ramold. New Book Annoucement: Obstinate Heroism. H-CivWar. 03-11-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/4113/discussions/5988050/new-book-annoucement-obstinate-heroism Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1.

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