Not all codes and traditions of the Old South ended abruptly with the Civil War. For many historians, however, there is truth in the thesis that the war marks the division between the Old South and the New South. To assess what happened to the old order during the tumultuous four years of the Confederacy, the essays in this book examine the South's dealing with the problem of continuity and persistence as a new era emerged. In the crucible of war what happened to the class system, to yeomen and planters, to millions of slaves, and to the common soldier? Myths and realities of the Old South undergo careful examination in this book of six papers from the Seventh Annual Chancellor Porter L. Fortune Symposium in Southern History (1981) at the University of Mississippi. Professor Emory M. Thomas, the foremost historian of the Confederate experience, defined the Confederacy as an extended moment during which southerners attempted simultaneously to define themselves as a people and to act out a national identity, and he characterized the Confederacy as the logical expression of antebellum southern ideology.The historians represented in this volume respond to Thomas's thesis and focus upon the theme of southern continuity or upon the lack of it.

This first book to make a detailed exploration of the system of riverboat traffic of the Delta region, "Steamboats and the Cotton Economy" is also the first balanced study showing how steamboats in the early years of the republic performed essentially the same role that railroads would later perform in revolutionizing the interior of the nation. Today, the mention of steamboats conjures up romantic visions of cotton landings and mythological river traders. Some of the steamboats plying the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta waterways give form to the myth. Others call forth the true work-a-day world of steamers loaded with passengers, freight, and sacks of cotton seed. Such ubiquitous trade boats, cotton, gin boats, sawmills boats, as well as ice and mail boats, not only helped to build the Cotton Kingdom but also added rich texture and color to the history of the Delta. In discovering the role of steamboats in the everyday life of the Mississippi Delta, this book reveals the vital economic function of river transportation in the development of the region. With this as a major theme, Harry P. Owens shows how entrepreneurs developed and maintained this transportation system. He focuses on the biography of one of these businessmen, Sherman H. Parisot, and gives a case study of his steamboat company, the P. Line.

This history of the steamboat era in the region covers a century, from the 1820s when itinerate steamers of the Mississippi River mosquito fleet rushed into the Delta for cargoes and passengers, until 1920 when Mississippi River towboats and their barges entered the Delta waterways. Between these decades, young men who came of age along the Yazoo River gained control of their waterways in the late antebellum period and tried to hold them for the Confederacy during the war years. Re-establishing their control in the postbellum Cotton Kingdom, Captain Parisot and his associates fought a futile battle against the business giants of New Orleans. During the final days of the era, when they were confined to the Delta waterways, Yazoo steamboatmen faced the new challenge of the railroads. By 1900, the locomotive supplanted the steamboat for most interregional shipping, but steamers continued to transport large quantities of freight and thousands of passengers each year. After more than a century, steamboats, which had played such a vital role in the building of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, yielded to the internal combustion engine and the era ended.

Perspectives and Irony in American Slavery Edited by Harry P. Owens Essays by Carl N. Degler, Eugene D. Genovese, David Brion Davis, Stanley L. Engerman, William K. Scarborough, John W. Blassingame, and Kenneth M. Stampp This volume is an outgrowth of a symposium entitled "The Slave Experience in America: A Bicentennial Perspective," sponsored by the University of Mississippi in October, 1975. Few institutions have had as much influence on American history as the institution of slavery. For at least three centuries slavery has generated discussion, heated debate, or active denunciation. In this volume of collected essays, seven distinguished historians offer, not consensus, but their individual perspectives on this controversial subject. In his essay, Carl N. Degler develops the idea of irony in American slavery, one of the major themes of this book. Examining slavery in its international setting, Eugene D. Genovese interprets the relationships between emerging capitalism and slavery and the conflicts between the industrial revolution and the old landed classes. David Brion Davis concentrates on American attitudes toward slavery by viewing the abolitionists' arguments against slavery as being shaped, in part, by the southern defense of slavery. Both sides of this conflict, according to Davis, ironically failed to develop along the central force of slavery. Stanley L. Engerman discusses the economies of slavery and the nature of the slave economy. In presenting slavery through the eyes of the slave holder, William K. Scarborough concentrates on the large plantations and offers a perspective on the paternalistic nature of slavery. John W. Blassingame examines slavery, not from the planter's house, but from the slave quarters and offers insights into the complex relationships and status symbols within the slave community. In the concluding essay, Kenneth M. Stampp presents his interpretation of the role of historians and their continuing investigation of American slavery.