The Civil War: Reconsidering America's Pivotal Struggle to Save Its Soul

Dr. Stephen A. Goldman, the psychiatrist and historian who wrote One More War to Fight: Union Veterans' Battle for Equality through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Lost Cause, now reconsiders the Civil War, its dual causes of Union and emancipation, revolutionary results, and ongoing impact. In this course, he uses the "Left-Armed Corps," a highly representative national group of enlisted Northern servicemen who lost their right arm function in combat, as an eyewitness bedrock.

We will watch citizen volunteers as they go off "to see the elephant," become world-class soldiers and sailors, re-enlist and re-elect Abraham Lincoln, and display tremendous pride in their comrades, units, what they endured, and achieved together. As a physician, Dr. Goldman will also starkly examine Civil War surgery, medical advances, and evolving concepts of disability and rehabilitation.

By analyzing how these men coped with physical and emotional challenges, developed their vital "warrior identity," and grew in so many ways, we can better understand the radicalizing effects of military service and combat, and the dilemma of veteran societal reintegration. We can also probe our own times, in which the struggle for the soul and very existence of the world's oldest constitutional democracy continues.