Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves ed. by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White (review)

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• Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves ed. by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White
• Boyd R. Harris

Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves. Edited by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White. UnCivil Wars. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023. Pp. xiv, 358. Paper, $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-6456-8; cloth, $114.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-6455-1.)

The subject of death is never far from any book about the Civil War, but a book about final resting places provides a clarity about death that resonates beyond the war. The scope of loss during the Civil War is still unparalleled in American history, with 2 percent of the population having died during those four years. COVID-19 has killed over one million Americans, but an event at the scale of the Civil War would have meant over six million dead by 2023. This analogy is perhaps as close as we can get to understanding the cataclysmic cost of the war for that generation of Americans. How they understood that loss and what it means to our present generation are the subjects of Final [End Page 624] Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves, edited by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White. Containing academic scholarship alongside personal reminiscences from nearly thirty historians, Final Resting Places provides a wide-ranging depiction of gravesites, burial pits, and memorials from all around the United States and also in Brazil.

Emphasizing the eclectic nature of death during the Civil War is the greatest strength of the book. Readers will learn not only about the resting places of Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant but also about the recovery of sailors from the sunken U.S.S. Monitor, the grave of a Black porter and valet in the Abraham Lincoln White House, and the double tomb-stones on the grave of Albert D. J. Cashier in Illinois. It is commendable to the contributors that more than half the book focuses on the final resting places of common soldiers, Native Americans, enslaved people, and civilians. Enough ink has been spilled writing about the graves and memorials of generals and presidents. Focusing on the common individual is also in keeping with the overall commemoration and memorialization of the war in both the North and the South.

Highlighting the common person’s death also conveys the gaping hole that loss creates among families and communities. Throughout the book, the recurring theme of closure emerges as the driving force for both the survivors of the war and the contributing historians themselves. Whether it is Colonel William C. Oates of Alabama spending decades looking for his brother’s body, lost at Gettysburg, or Dr. Barbara A. Gannon remembering her mother’s recent passing while attending a Memorial Day ceremony in the 1990s, readers will encounter several instances in which to ponder the impact death can have in one’s own life. Those large questions about mortality, life experiences, responsibility, and culpability appear in a very personal way throughout the recounted experiences of the contributors. Students, particularly ones in high school and undergraduate classes, will benefit from this book. Too often the professionalism of the historian hinders the personal reasons that each of us have in becoming historians. Connecting those individual experiences to the larger pursuit of understanding the impact of loss in the Civil War makes Final Resting Places a very engaging and thoughtful book.

Boyd R. Harris College of the Albemarle Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association ...