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The article discusses how the government of the Confederate States of America utilized the military detention facility Castle Thunder Prison in Richmond, Virginia, to reinforce the concepts of paternalism and gender roles and notions of masculinity, femininity, and nationalism during the U.S. Civil War. It also argues that Caste Run demonstrated an upset in the social order of the South.

The article discusses the concepts of loyalty and dissent in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, during and immediately following the U.S. Civil War, particularly following the signing of loyalty oaths by many residents of the parish in 1864. It discusses the demographic characteristics of oath-takers in Alexandria, Louisiana, the motivations of oath-takers, and the concept of Confederate nationalism. It also discusses the failure of the U.S. Republican Party to gain significant white support after the war.

The article explores the diplomatic history of the U.S. through a discussion of the career of Louisiana senator Pierre Soulé. The author reflects on the development of U.S. nationalism and political culture in the Democratic party during the antebellum era. Emphasis is given to topics such as Soulé's conflicted support for slavery, territorial expansion, and his appointment as minister to Spain under the administration of president Franklin Pierce.

Corpus Christi Bay was named by Spanish or French explorers in honor of the liturgical feast day of Corpus Christi on which the region was initially encountered during the sixteenth century. But the inland Corpus Christi, now the eighth largest city in Texas, did not come about and was not named until much later, during the 1840s. The standard assumption, that Corpus Christi is a toponym derived from Spanish (or French) colonial history should be reconsidered. The creation and naming of a place called Corpus Christi offers some fascinating insights into anxieties about religion, race and national identity during a critical period of nineteenth century US expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the pictorial press during the U.S. Civil War constructed nationalism and national identity to its readers. Illustrated content was studied in the nation's two leading pictorial publications, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Asking how the war was reported visually, the researcher studied selected issues from these two periodicals to reveal how drawings by artist-reporters used flags and flag iconography to communicate sentiments of nationalism. By focusing on pictorial reporting, the narratives crafted by these early visual journalists presented unique ideological constructs about what it meant to be on the Northern or Southern side of this conflict. Using visual semiotic methods to ascertain both denotative and connotative meanings embedded in pictorial news, this study found that national identity was most often associated with a white, male public with connections to the military and government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses U.S. nationalism in relation to the civil rights of American sailors and prisoners of war in British prisons during the War of 1812, and it mentions national identity and loyalty to the U.S. The treatment of captured Americans at the Dartmoor Depot prison in England is examined, along with the impact of disease, poor food, and overcrowding on American prisoners in Great Britain. Reuben Beasley, the American Agent for Prisoners of War in England, is assessed.

An essay is presented which discusses the U.S. Southern States secessionists' support for the Confederate States of America prior to and during the U.S. Civil War, including in regard to secessionists' support for Confederate nationalism, the U.S. Monroe Doctrine and a desire to expand slavery through developing a U.S. empire. Confederate President Jefferson Davis' desire to expand slavery throughout Latin America is discussed.

This article traces the process by which people in the United States embraced the Continental Divide as a geographic feature of North America in the late 1860s. Building on recent work in environmental history, Civil War memory, geography, and the history of nationalism, the essay explains how accurate mapping alone did not reveal the Continental Divide. Instead, the divide's conceptualization also depended on Americans' history of thinking about the Rockies as a political boundary, southern secession, and the building of the transcontinental railroad. Many Americans found in that railroad's construction solace for a nation recovering from the Civil War, and they cast themselves as conquering nature to unite the nation. Railroad boosters and passengers consecrated the Continental Divide as a symbol of national unity and an icon o f obstacles overcome. In a nation trying to overcome its sectional division between North and South, aspirations for reunification formed a foundation for emphasizing the continent's most prominent feature that separates East and West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent calls for updated approaches to the Irish-American historical experience recommend more systematic attention to complexities inherent in Irish immigration and settlement. They also seek further contextualisation of the history of the Irish in the USA within broader North American, transatlantic and global frameworks. The need to review and potentially reappraise longstanding, essentialist perspectives on Irish arrival and assimilation is equally evident. This article expands on foundational narrative histories of the Boston Irish to re-examine Famine-era settlement and contending agendas within spheres of religious affiliation and political activism. The character and evolution of Irish-American ethnic identity, and the tragic imprint of the Famine under consideration here pave the way for new readings of traditional orthodoxies. Collectively, they reveal Boston's Irish historical terrain to be more complex than the record currently suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Irish Americans fought for both the Union and the Confederacy during the American Civil War of 1861-1865. This article explores the motivating factors behind Irish American decisions during the Civil War Era. Drawing on the work of Susannah Ural, this article argues that the varying economic, social and political factors influencing Irish Americans were interdependent, forming a unique set of interests which reflected the dual identity of the Irish in America. The article argues that this set of distinctly Irish American interests was able to be manipulated in support of the antagonistic Union and Confederate causes, and that the experiences of Irish Americans, North and South, were largely parallel throughout the Civil War Era. The article explores the various decisions taken by Irish Americans in both the Union and the Confederacy throughout the conflict, and demonstrates that the particular interests produced by the duality of Irish American identity provided the ultimate context for decision-making throughout the period. Finally, it argues that, rather than creating a 'melting pot' in which Irish migrants were assimilated into a cohesive American national identity, the Civil War in fact acted as a catalyst for the consolidation of a distinctly Irish American collective identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York has been portrayed in Antebellum American travel literature, focusing on how travel literature fit into the U.S. print culture and helped promote a national identity. Other topics include how travel literature influenced state formation in the early 19th century, the history of the Military Academy in the 19th century, and the role of the Hudson River in enticing tourists to West Point.

On a trip across the continent in the summer of 1865, newspaper publisher Samuel Bowles recorded his experiences in a series of letters to the readers of his newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts. Reprinted in newspapers across the country and collected later that year as Across the Continent: A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax, Bowles's letters provide a view of the frontier and its people, as well as a discourse of nationalism. Building on a framework of epistolary journalism, and with theoretical models of nationalism in mind, this study explores how Across the Continent provided evidence of a new nationhood for the readers of 1865. It examines passages in which Bowles directly articulated a philosophy of nationhood as well as those passages in which he indirectly supported the work of ideological and economic nation-building through an exploration of landscape, a profile of the citizenry, and challenges to national sovereignty. It also discusses the ideological linchpin and guarantor of Bowles's philosophy of nation, the transcontinental railroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), one of many white lineal societies that emerged in the late-nineteenth century, promoted a fantasy of the nation as an extended white family, united by blood. Yet the DAR faced internal and external challenges before it could transform documented Revolutionary blood into political capital. The organization accomplished this by asserting its biological credentials selectively, not just in racial and class terms, but also in reference to the fitness of its ancestors and descendants. The DAR's "will to descend," and the ambition of its leaders, meant that patriotic character had to be demonstrated as well as celebrated. By narrating a compelling, ethno-nationalist interpretation of U.S. history--inclusive and elitist, democratic and demonstratively exclusionary--the DAR began to exercise a marked influence over political culture within a decade of its founding, culminating in its enthusiastic support for the War with Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study is presented concerning Evangelical reform and patriotism in southern Illinois between 1852 and 1900. It examines the organization the Southern Illinois Conference (SIC) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, religious zeal in southern Illinois during the era known as the Gilded Age, and what the author identifies as Midwestern characteristics of faith, nationalism, and patriotism. The article discusses the emphasis of the Bible, observance of the Sabbath, and temperance efforts among evangelicals.

The article reflects on the novel "The Rose of Wissahikon," by George Lippard. The novel was first published in "Saturday Courier" on July 4, 1847. It notes that the topic of this novel is suited to capture the patriotic spirit of the American Independence Day. The author states that the novel also revive Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's heritage of nationalism.

De Bow's Review was the leading magazine of the South during the antebellum period. This historical study examines the journal's meaning-making about Mexicans and reveals how the magazine, as the principal voice of the section's plantation, commercial, banking, and mining interests, promoted the image of a broken, degenerate Mexico and proclaimed that only the "Anglo-Saxon race" was capable of bringing progress amid the American project of empire-building. Though Mexicans' racial status was unresolved in the 1840s, De Bow's Review correspondents later assigned to them the status of non-masters unit to self-govern and, therefore, fit only to serve and to be ruled by their Anglo-American conquerors. The context of the correspondents' claims of Mexican inferiority suggests that they simultaneously engaged in an unspoken struggle to differentiate the South from the North by defining Mexican inferiority in relation to Southern values of bravery, honor, and dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study of Kentucky editor and U.S. Democratic Party political operative George Nicholas Sanders. It examines his career and its connections between the Southern U.S. and Europe in the 1840s and 1850s, U.S. Civil War-era internationalism in the South, and the concept of nationalism. The article also examines his relationship with Hungarian rebel Lajos (Louis) Kossuth. The author argues that Sanders is an understudied figure in the history of the Southern states.

The article presents an examination into U.S. foreign policy during the later antebellum period, highlighting the popularly held attitudes of politicians regarding race, Central American nations, and the economic expansion of the U.S. A specific instance is given within the administration of President Franklin Pierce describing how the travelogue "Waikna: Adventures on the Mosquito Shore," by Ephraim George Squier, influenced and exemplified the prevailing attitudes of the period, including that of the president. Additional subjects addressed include the life of Squier, the popularity of print literature, and a survey of American race attitudes.

The article discusses the murder trial of Irishmen Dominic Daley and James Halligan in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1806, examining the influence of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice. It comments on defense attorney Francis Blake and Massachusetts attorney general James Sullivan. The author also reflects on the trial of mariner Henry Phillips in the death of confectioner's assistant Gaspard Denegri in Boston, Massachusetts in 1816. Aspects of national identity and xenophobia are considered.

The language of Anglophobia has been widely accepted as the coin of American politics throughout the nineteenth century. However, the grand narrative of Anglo-American rapprochement in the final quarter of the century has diverted attention away from the many forms and purposes bestowed upon Anglophobia. The discourse of Anglophobia fits hand in glove within debates regarding American nationality and citizenship. For this reason a variety of ethnic, social, and political groups deployed anti-English sentiments for the purposes of mobilizing the electorate and as a surrogate for attacking other social and economic elites. What follows is an examination of the panoply of Anglophobias that existed in Gilded Age America. Utilizing its protean and malleable nature, Anglophobia was a lens through which Americans refracted, reformulated, and refined the concepts of national identity, domestic policy, and American interests abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the case of U.S. missionary Jonas King, tried in Greece in 1852 for proselytism and sentenced to imprisonment and exile before the U.S. government intervened on his behalf. The role of missionaries as non-state actors in U.S. foreign relations is discussed. Specifically, the activities of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), with which King was affiliated, is discussed, as is the trend toward extending U.S. protection to Americans overseas, seen as a function of rising U.S. nationalism in the antebellum period.