Battle on the Gender Homefront: Depictions of the American Civil War in Contemporary Young-Adult Literature

The American Civil War has been a popular topic for young-adult writers for years, with new books now being written from young women’s perspectives. In this paper, I will examine the gender ideologies that infiltrate contemporary Civil War books for young adults. I will examine four recent young-adult Civil-War novels: G. Clifton Wisler’s Mr. Lincoln’s Drummer (1995); Maureen Stack Sappe´ y’s Letters from Vinnie (1999); Jim Murphy’s The Journal of James Edmond Pease: A Civil War Union Soldier (1998); and Karen Hesse’s A Light in the Storm: The Civil War Diary of Amelia Martin (1999). I will argue that in these books young women are often shown to be disengaged and apolitical, while their male counterparts use language in powerful and political ways, even despite the historical record.