ABSTRACT
This chapter examines representations of the Civil War from the decades leading up to the war to the present, as writers continue to reflect on the most devastating conflict in American history. It shows how social, economic, and political systems recognize, or fail to recognize, the humanity and citizenship of all individuals. Unlike the literature of many other American wars, writers include both the victors and the defeated, thus presenting a diversity of opinion about the conflict, its stakes, and its outcome. Having already achieved success as a novelist, Herman Melville decided to shift from writing fiction to poetry just before the Civil War. Walt Whitman was an established poet before the war, and throughout his literary life he was invested in representing the common man and woman through everyday language and examining the possibilities of America. Some Civil War fiction comes from veterans, such as John William De Forest and Ambrose Bierce.
