Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era by Sarah J. Purcell (review)

Reviewed by: Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era by Sarah J. Purcell Karol Kovalovich Weaver (bio) Keywords U. S. Civil War, Mourning, Grief, Death rituals, National identity, Reconciliation Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era. By Sarah J. Purcell. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Pp. 352. Paper, 34. 95. ) Sarah J. Purcell's Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era analyzes the public funerals of well-known Americans to show how they contributed to the formation of national identities, memories of the Civil War, and the evolution of death rituals in the United States. The meaning ascribed to the dead depended on which group was grieving the person who had passed. Purcell contributes to historical conversations about reunion, reconciliation, and emancipationist memories of the Civil War. Her work is supported by an impressive collection of primary sources. Using funerals as case studies, Purcell traces how members of the public grieved important American persons before, during, and after the Civil War. She begins her analysis by considering the death and mourning of Henry Clay. She shows how the funeral rituals for Clay coincided with concerns about the nation and whether it could overcome sectional crises. Purcell also explains that the public mourning of Clay recalled traditions from the American Revolution at the same time that it foretold how death was mourned during and after the Civil War. Reflecting his American system of internal improvements, Clay's body traveled by boat, train, and road, connecting Americans who lived in the North, South, and West. Yet, despite this unity, some Americans saw his death as the end of compromise while others, namely abolitionists, refused to mourn a man who they believed preserved the nation by maintaining slavery. An intriguing element of Purcell's discussion of abolitionists' critical reaction to Clay's death is her assertion that Frederick Douglass's famous Fourth of July Speech was written and delivered at the time of the public mourning of Clay. Purcell shows that the death of Clay failed to unite mourners. In the remaining chapters, she examines pairs of persons, one from the North and one from the South, to show how the ways they were mourned shaped often competing ideas about nationhood and how the Civil War was understood and remembered. Purcell's work is an important contribution to the history of memory and the Civil War. Her case studies "provide a lens for examining anew debates over competing strands of Civil War memory" (3). For example, End Page 143 in Chapter 4, "Charles Sumner and Joseph E. Johnston: Mourning, Memory, and Forgetting, " she investigates how by the end of his life, Sumner sought to "promote messages of reconciliation" (141), downplay "military memory" (144), and continue the fight for civil rights. After his death, calls for reconciliation did continue, but it was not the military memory of the Civil War that was forgotten, but emancipationist memory that was undermined. In Chapter 5, "Extraordinary Demonstrations of Respect: Frederick Douglass, Winnie Davis, and Standards of Grief, " Purcell continues to interrogate memory and the Civil War. Through her examination of the public mourning that took place when Douglass died, she shows that emancipationist memory survived, but "reconciliationist white supremacy" (178) existed along with it. Many eulogies praised Douglass's fight against slavery and his steadfast dedication to civil rights, while other eulogies mentioned Douglass's white ancestors and credited his intellect to them. The primary-source research that Purcell conducted is inspiring. She studied a vast array of sources including newspaper reports, eulogies, cemetery monuments, prints, engravings, and commemorative envelopes. The second chapter, "The Death of Union and the Martyrdom of Elmer Ellsworth and Stonewall Jackson, " is especially noteworthy for its inclusion and analysis of many different types of primary sources. Elmer Ellsworth was a beloved Union soldier who was killed by Alexandria, Virginia, innkeeper James W. Jackson after Ellsworth removed the Confederate flag from the roof of Jackson's hotel. Jackson too was killed in the confrontation over the flag; Ellsworth's friend Cpl. Francis E. Brownwell stabbed him to death with a bayonet. To demonstrate the public. . .