An Analysis Of Irene Hunt's Across Five Aprils

The novel Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt is based on the story of the childhood of Hunt’s grandfather during the Civil War in the United States. The story takes place in Southern Illinois in 1861-1865, ruled by Abraham Lincoln. The Creighton family live in Jasper County, Illinois and Matt guessed that eighty percent of the people in the part of the country count Missouri or Kentucky or Tennessee as somehow being their own. Missouri and Kentucky historically stay Union while Tennessee turns Confederate, and this was why there were complicating attitudes about the war in the Creighton’s community. Between 1861 and 1865, political emotions were growing long before that. Jethro thinks right that “this year of 1863 is a find, carefree time for

In South, torn between the economic benefits of slavery and the moral and constitutional issues raised, and white Southerners grew more and more defensive. They argued that black people were incapable of caring for themselves. They said that slavery was a benevolent institution that kept them fed, clothed, and occupied. Most Northerners did not doubt that black people being inferior to whites, but they did doubt the benevolence of slavery. The Civil War changed the future of the United States. The war began as a struggle to preserve the Union, but not a struggle to free the slaves, and many in the North and South felt that the conflict would decide both issues at last. Many slaves escaped to the North in the early years of the war, and several Union generals established abolitionist policies in the Southern land that they conquered. Congress passed laws permitting the seizure of slaves from the property of rebellious Southerners. On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln presented the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. On December 6, 1865, eight months after the Civil War ended, the United States adopted the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed the practice of