Eileen M. McMahon is a professor of history at Lewis University. She holds a doctorate in history from Loyola University Chicago and is the author of What Parish Are You From: A Chicago Irish Community and Race Relations, coauthor of North Woods River: The St. Croix River in Upper Midwest History, and editor of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society.
Listed in: American Civil War · American History, Midwest · Chicago
Civil War Chicago
Eyewitness to History
Edited by Theodore J. Karamanski and Eileen M. McMahon
The American Civil War was a crucial event in the development of Chicago as the metropolis of the heartland. Not only did Chicagoans play an important role in the politics of the conflict, encouraging emancipation and promoting a “hard war” policy against Southern civilians, but they supported the troops materially through production of military supplies and foodstuffs as well as morally and spiritually through patriotic publications and songs.
