★★★★★ 4
Outstanding exploration of the Confederacy's domestic divisions which helped contribute to its ultimate defeat.
Format: Paperback
This is an extremely powerful interpretation of the political forces at play in the Civil War South. Like it or not, Stephanie McCurry delivers a careful exploration of the domestic forces which were occurring during the Civil War in the Confederacy. The result is illuminating and exposes issues with great depth that have been overlooked in the study of the conflict. Much as domestic issues influenced government policies in the United States during the war as well as constantly in US history, domestic issues played an important role in influencing the actions of the Confederate government. Despite the Confederacy being an attempt to create an elite class system of rule, those without a voice in government found a way to be heard partly through their own actions, but also due to the democratic nature of American government.
McCurry, the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania has definitely opened a can of worms with the release of this book. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2011 losing out to Eric Foner’s The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, itself a great work on the Civil War. Just how important were the actions of women and slaves in the Confederacy during the Civil War? McCurry states that their actions helped drive government policies. Based upon her work as well as others I would say she was correct. Others disagree. I think the thing to consider here is that the Confederacy, despite setting up a government ruled by the elite class of slave owners, was still responsive to the majority of the people inhabiting it.
While it was an attempt to create a new nation, it was still required to adhere to some of the principles of the American Revolution. In order to establish the nation, the slave owners were going to have to wage an insurrection and for that they needed the help of the non-slave owners who would compose the majority of its armies. McCurry notes this and shows that this was just the first example of the elites compromising to achieve their goals. No matter what the elites desired, it could only happen with the support of the people in the Confederacy. It would be that support which was critical for the survival of the Confederacy. Without it, the Confederacy had no chance.
This is often overlooked. First, many people think the Confederacy enjoyed the support of the people of the slave states. They did not. Of the 15 slave states in 1860, only 11 would join the Confederacy. Of those 11 states, a full third of the white men in them actually opposed secession. From the very beginning, the Confederacy had to deal with an active resistance inside its borders from whites who rejected their authority and slaves who would contribute as little as possible to the Confederate war effort. Later, soldier wives would riot as well as shield deserters. McCurry wrote extensively about these features.
Just how much these factors played in the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy is going to be a guess and is open to debate. Did they cause the Confederacy to lose? Not of their own accord, but they did contribute to the defeat of the South over time. There is no doubt that the use of slaves by the Confederate armies was challenged from the very beginning of the war to the final end of it. The facts are undeniable on this matter and McCurry is not the first historian to note this nor will she be the last. The inability of the Confederacy to use its manpower to the maximum capacity was a crippling factor. The issue of slave labor and slave soldiers reflects the deep divisions within the Confederacy and exposes the rotten foundation which the slave owners tried to build their nation upon.
All in all I liked the book. As some of the other comments show, the writing style could have been better. She repeated herself in multiple spots. This I think is a reflection of her still emerging writing style. Confederate Reckoning is only her second published book. She has written many articles, but those are different methods of writing compared to books. It takes some time for historians to really find their voice when writing monographs. She does have a Coursera course available, “The History of the Slave South,” which was offered in both 2014 and 2015. I think McCurry does a good job in opening up our eyes to the domestic issues on the Confederate home front. The real question which will be debated is just how much impact they had. I suspect that will be the argument for many.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2015
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