2025/01/01 by Katherine Grandjean · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Race, History, and American Society #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
paper · doi:10.1353/eam.2025.a951319
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract: The Revolution, in the South, was a ghastly civil war. For some, the scars did not fade quickly. Although recent historiography has emphasized the surprising amount of reconciliation among former enemies after the fighting ended, the postwar scene—when viewed through the perspectives of ordinary southerners—is more complicated. Looking broadly at the fates of loyalists, at stories that were told about living former loyalists, and at folk memory, this piece presents a more unsettled view of the Revolution's aftermath. Even after war's end, bad feelings lingered—much longer than we might imagine. The legislatures of the southern states may have moved toward reconciliation, but many men did not. Neither the stigma of loyalism nor the memory of the war's viciousness dissipated easily. Using early histories, memoirs, newspapers, letters, and local lore, this article gauges the troubled long-term memory of the Revolution, as it existed in the minds of those who lived through it.