The Evolution of the South: Eliza Frances Andrews, General William T. Sherman, and Green Interpretations of the Civil War

Abstract

This essay examines representations of nature in the journal written by Eliza Frances Andrews during the last year of the Civil War. Andrews utilizes an evolutionary metaphor to justify the Old South, explain the Civil War, and create a New South that maintains many of the Southern values. General Sherman also utilizes nature in order to put an end to the war with his legendary “March to the Sea.” The fact that representatives of both the North and the South utilize ecologies for oppositional goals illustrates the vulnerability of nature to be manipulated for political purposes.