CWRT Dec 2025 meeting:Brian Jordan on Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War

About this episode

The episode discusses the experiences of Union veterans after the Civil War and their struggles with reintegration and healing.

For More info: www.chicagocwrt.org The Civil War visited unprecedented violence on the United States. That violence was also inscribed on the bodies and minds of the nearly two million men who donned Union blue between 1861 and 1865. How did Union veterans make sense of their physical, psychological, and emotional wounds as the nation plunged into the years of Reconstruction? How did the politics of the postwar years complicate their reintegration to civilian life and personal healing? Why were so many veterans so unwilling to let go of the war and its legacy, and what urgent messages do those ex-soldiers have for us today? Brian Matthew Jordan is Associate Professor of U.S. Civil War History, Co-Director of the SHSU Civil War Consortium, and Chairperson of the History Department at Sam Houston State University, where he has taught since 2015. Professor Jordan earned his undergraduate degree in Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College (under the tutelage of Gabor S. Boritt and Allen C. Guelzo), and M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in History at Yale (under the direction of David W. Blight). His first book, Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War, was a…

People in this episode

Host: Marc Kunis

Guest: Brian Matthew Jordan

Topics covered

• Union veterans
• Civil War
• Reconstruction
• postwar politics
• personal healing
• historical legacy

Keywords

• Civil War
• Union veterans
• Reconstruction
• psychological wounds
• historical legacy
• Brian Jordan
• Marching Home

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Sam Houston State University, Gettysburg College, Yale

Books & works: Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War

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