| This dissertation examines the nature of fatherhood under pressure during the final days of slavery through the Civil War in the nineteenth-century United States. Histories of this period often subsume narratives of fatherhood under larger umbrellas such as mothering and soldiery, so this dissertation seeks to balance that focus by specifically focusing on the ways that men attempted to run their households and raise their children when faced with violent, disruptive life events such as war and enslavement. By doing so, this dissertation pushes back against historians of the family who characterize the Victorian family man as cold, aloof, or detached from his children. Family men, black and white, enjoyed robust and fulfilling emotional relationships with their wives and children during peacetime, a relationship laid bare by the suffering soldiering husbands and fathers endured removed from their home. Drawing upon unpublished primary sources such as letters and diaries, as well as published collections of sources such as the Slave Narratives and soldier's correspondence, this dissertation uncovers men as integrated members of the family, full of emotion, fear, loss, and love. Fully embracing the dark turn of Civil War historiography, this dissertation argues that family men, away from their homes, at mid-century experienced a loss of control, exacerbated upon their being depend upon others for support. Rather than view soldiers as emerging triumphantly from the horrors of war with fond memories of brotherhood and camaraderie, these men should be viewed in a similar vein as enslaved black men. They were undergoing the worst years of their live, and their sense of duty to their country was severely tested by their familial obligations. |
