The Blue and the Gray and the Red:

Abstract

This chapter analyzes how the Socialist Party of America invoked the “Second American Revolution” to advocate left nationalism, incremental reform, and Christian socialism, or to validate calls for revolution or international industrial emancipation. Pairing the class struggle with abolitionism tied socialism to domestic tradition and rendered the Civil War part of a revolutionary struggle. The Industrial Workers of the World, meanwhile, claimed one of the most contentious legacies of the abolitionists: the defiance of absolute property rights. However, the Red Scare helped undermine the socialist narrative of the war for the Union as a working-class war. Political repression reinforced the decline of revolutionary Civil War memories, which in turn yielded before rising strains of conservative industrial patriotism.