Exceptionalism in Crisis: Faction, Anarchy, and Mexico in the US Imagination during the Civil War Era (Beverton) James Pula Scott Hartwig

Scott Hartwig

Georgia—as evidence of the cruelty and barbarity of the Confederacy

Made from trees that stood during the Battle of Gettysburg and "witnessed" the fighting

Many of these men were wounded

When the opportunity to strike beckoned

Exceptionalism in Crisis: Faction, Anarchy, and Mexico in the US Imagination during the Civil War Era (Beverton) James Pula Scott Hartwigby Alys D. Beverton Before 1861, US Americans could confidently claim to belong to the New Worlds exceptional republic, unlike other self governing nations in the Western Hemisphere such as Mexico, which struggled with political violence and unrest. Americans used such comparisons to show themselves and the world that democracy in the United States was working as designed. The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 exploded this illusion by showing that