Prison Pens
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Prison Pens

Gender, Memory, and Imprisonment in the Writings of Mollie Scollay and Wash Nelson, 1863–1866

Title Details

Pages: 160

Illustrations: 10 b&w images

Trim size: 6.000in x 9.000in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 02/01/2018

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5192-6

List Price: $25.95

Hardcover

Pub Date: 02/01/2018

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5193-3

List Price: $67.95

Web PDF

Pub Date: 02/01/2018

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5194-0

List Price: $67.95

Prison Pens

Gender, Memory, and Imprisonment in the Writings of Mollie Scollay and Wash Nelson, 1863–1866

A poignant exchange that reveals the role of memory in Civil War histories

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  • Description
  • Reviews

Prison Pens presents the memoir of a captured Confederate soldier in northern Virginia and the letters he exchanged with his fiancée during the Civil War. Wash Nelson and Mollie Scollay’s letters, as well as Nelson’s own manuscript memoir, provide rare insight into a world of intimacy, despair, loss, and reunion in the Civil War South. The tender voices in the letters combined with Nelson’s account of his time as a prisoner of war provide a story that is personal and political, revealing the daily life of those living in the Confederacy and the harsh realities of being an imprisoned soldier. Ultimately, through the juxtaposition of the letters and memoir, Prison Pens provides an opportunity for students and scholars to consider the role of memory and incarceration in retelling the Confederate past and incubating Lost Cause mythology.

This book will be accompanied by a digital component: a website that allows students and scholars to interact with the volume’s content and sources via an interactive map, digitized letters, and special lesson plans.

This edited volume reveals how two members of the Civil War generation struggled with imprisonment—including that which did not take place behind prison walls. . . . Williams and Kutzler’s detailed introduction and chapter summaries, as well as an innovative digital component, make this collection ideal for the classroom.

—Angela M. Riotto, The Civil War Monitor

Both the letters and the memoirs will be of interest to scholars and students alike, including issues of Confederate nationalism, Protestant faith, honor and manhood, gender and military occupation, white supremacy and race, and the destruction wrought by war.

—Laura Mammina, The Journal of Southern History

About the Author/Editor

Timothy J. Williams (Editor)
TIMOTHY J. WILLIAMS is an assistant professor of history at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Intellectual Manhood: University, Self, and Society in the Antebellum South.

Evan A. Kutzler (Editor)
EVAN A. KUTZLER is an assistant professor of history at Georgia Southwestern University. He is the author (with photographer Jill Stuckey) of Ossabaw Island: A Sense of Place.