The culmination of more than a decade of research, Stanton Garner’s magisterial study reveals the previously little-known world of one of America’s greatest writers during its most devastating era - that of the Civil War. Contrary to popular belief, Garner contends, Melville was not intellectually and emotionally detached from the war. In actuality, Melville brooded over the war’s enormous brutality and destructive power. At the same time, his passion for writing, which had suffered greatly in the wake of his grand failures of the 1850s, revived. With renewed purpose, Melville saw an opportunity to establish himself as the prophet-poet of rededicated America rising phoenix-like the ashes of destruction. The vehicle for this ambitious enterprise was
Battle-Pieces , an epically conceived book of poems that chronicles the war from John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry through Lincoln’s assassination. Despite its innovative style and powerful imagery, Melville’s epic statement about the war was little noticed by a weary and unreceptive readership trying to move beyond the war’s painful memories. Drawing upon previously unknown or neglected archival sources, Garner places Melville’s experience within the larger contexts of his extended family, social circles, political beliefs, travels and reading. He establishes Melville’s position in the rift among major Northern writers in which Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier were on one side and Melville, Hawthorne, and - to some extent - Whitman were on the other. By delving into the complexities and apparent contradictions of Melville’s personal life, Garner reveals why a man who was diametrically opposed to slavery, refused to side with the abolitionists and maintained the anti-administration attitude predominant in his Democratic family, while supporting the Union war effort.