About

My name is Brianna Kirk, and I am a senior American Studies major with a double minor in Civil War Era Studies and Education at Gettysburg College. I have the honor to be a 2014 Mellon Scholar, which will fund a summer of research examining why Jefferson Davis, leader and president of the Confederate rebellion, was not tried and executed after the Civil War. One of the thorniest questions in the aftermath of Appomattox was how to piece the Union back together. After such an unprecedented war, the exact course of how to survive Reconstruction was unknown. Furthermore, the question of what to do with Davis lingered. While many Union veterans dreamt of “hanging Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree,” Northern civilians recoiled in fear, quickly embracing sectional reconciliation and dropping all charges of treason. What would such a high profile trial and execution say about a democracy staggering away from the battlefields of war? Would it destroy the tentative peace, thereby complicating Reconstruction? My project will examine this fear in the immediate post-war period and work to explain why Northerners were so eager to spare Davis from the gallows and forget the four bloody years of war. Thank you for reading and following my research progress!!