Confederate Reckoning

Describe in your own words Stephanie McCurry’s thesis in Confederate Reckoning. How does she combine elements of political, social, cultural, gender, and military history to tell a cohesive story of the Confederacy’s collapse?

A major argument throughout Confederate Reckoning is that the Confederacy was doomed by social and political factors as much as its military defeats. What were these factors, and how did they contribute to the Confederacy’s military failure?

Choose one of the primary sources that McCurry discusses at length, such as James D. B. DeBow’s The Interest in Slavery of the Southern Nonslaveholder (45), Sarah Thompson’s account of a Tennessee Unionist network (121-22), or the writings of the enslaved writer William Webb (226-27). Describe in your own words what you believe the source is saying. How does this source support McCurry’s overall arguments?