Defining Duty in the Civil War

"A splendid book. Gallman is a shrewd historian.” — Civil War Monitor

“Recommended.” — CHOICE

“A remarkable, complex, and confident exposition of a world at war, in which individuals found themselves caught between the complacencies of antebellum class, gender, and racial certainties and the challenges of a changed future, a world whose cultural echoes persisted well past 1865.” — American Historical Review

“Investigates how the folks back home . . . came to understand their proper social roles in the ‘People’s Conflict’ through the print media. . . . Well-researched and well-presented.” — Journal of American History

“I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the American Civil War. I say that because this book handles some of the issues of the home front unlike any book I have read before. . . . His research is phenomenal, his writing is engaging, and the reader is never left confused.” — Matthew Bartlett, Gettysburg Chronicle

“Both an enjoyable read and one that expands our understanding of the public discourses occurring on the Union home front.” — Journal of Military History

“Highly original and important work. . . . Highlights important continuities between the antebellum and wartime North.” — Reviews in American History

“Lucid, informative, and admirably researched, and . . . offers an invaluable glimpse into the teeming world of ideas in print.” — Journal of Southern History

“J. Matthew Gallman has produced a fascinating study that expands our knowledge of the impact of media on the choices citizens made during those perilous years of Civil War.” — On Point: The Journal of Army History

“In an intriguing and wonderfully illustrated book, J. Matthew Gallman offers a crucial new take on print culture and citizenship in the North during the Civil War. By looking at print materials in popular media, from political cartoons to short stories, Gallman gives readers surprising insights into the hearts and minds of Northerners by looking at what they wrote and read during this tumultuous era in American history.” — Lyde Cullen Sizer, author of The Political Work of Northern Women Writers and the Civil War, 1850–1872