Victorian Confederate Poetry: The Southern Cause in Verse

When the winners of the American Civil War rewrote its narrative, one of the most important features of the Confederacy was largely lost to history: the record of the national spirit of the Southern people shortly before, during, and after the conflict.

This sentiment-the emotional impetus behind Dixies war effort-was vigorously chronicled by Southern poets, who produced a vast body of poignant Confederate verse that largely disappeared from public view after the turn of the twentieth century.

In his one-of-a-kind 578-page work, Victorian Confederate Poetry: The Southern Cause in Verse, 1861-1901, award-winning Southern historian and Civil War scholar Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook, brings these forgotten compositions back to life.

The nearly 400 poems he has carefully selected encompass a remarkable spectrum of writing, thought, and emotion, addressing the universal themes of war, patriotism, courage, honor, duty, heritage, family, faith, loss, and death.

The contributors include Confederate soldiers and officers, Southern civilians, foreign sympathizers, and even several respectful Northerners. Men and women, children and seniors are all represented. Among the collections best-known writers are William Gilmore Simms, Sidney Lanier, Catherine Anne Warfield, Thomas Nelson Page, James Ryder Randall, John Reuben Thompson, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Henry Timrod, Jane T. H. Cross, Abram Joseph Ryan, Annie Chambers Ketchum, Francis Orray Ticknor, John Esten Cooke, and "the poet laureate of the South," Paul Hamilton Hayne.

Through the heartfelt words of these celebrated writers and scores of lesser-known poets, readers encounter the Southern experience in the actual words of those who lived through the era. Their poetry provides a revealing primary-source window into why Southerners believed they seceded, why they fought, what they hoped to preserve, and how they understood constitutional government, patriotism, sacrifice, defeat, and remembrance.

Heavily illustrated with authentic nineteenth-century images and supplemented with detailed notes and a comprehensive bibliography, Victorian Confederate Poetry preserves an important body of American literary and historical material rarely encountered today. It is a substantial contribution to Southern, Confederate, Civil War, and Victorian literature. Available in paperback and hardcover.

Colonel Seabrooks other works include Abraham Lincoln Was a Liberal, Jefferson Davis Was a Conservative; Lincolns War; All We Ask Is to Be Let Alone; The Unholy Crusade; The Great Yankee Coverup; Confederacy 101; Confederate Flag Facts; Women in Gray; Abraham Lincoln: The Southern View; The Constitution of the Confederate States of America Explained; The Bittersweet Bond; and Rise Up and Call Them Blessed.