Gary W. Gallagher - New Perspectives on the Union War

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE UNION WAR

THE NORTHS CIVIL WAR

Andrew L. Slap, series editor

New Perspectives on the Union War

Gary W. Gallagher and Elizabeth R. Varon, Editors

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK 2019

Copyright 2019 Fordham University Press

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Printed in the United States of America

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First edition

Contents

Gary W. Gallagher and Elizabeth R. Varon

Frank J. Cirillo

Tamika Y. Nunley

Jack Furniss

William B. Kurtz

Jesse George-Nichol

D. H. Dilbeck

Michael T. Caires

Peter C. Luebke

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE UNION WAR

Gary W. Gallagher and Elizabeth R. Varon

The United States does and must assert its authority wherever it once had power, General William T. Sherman wrote the mayor of Atlanta after capturing that city in September 1864. Such is the National Feeling, added the general: This Feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. New Perspectives on the Union War explores, at a wide array of points along the political spectrum, the many forms patriotic sentiment took in the loyal states during the Civil War. As a group, the essays in this volume demonstrate that while there was a broad consensus the war was fought, or should be fought, for the cause of the Union, there was bitter disagreement over how to define that causea debate not only between political camps but also within them. Among ardent opponents of slavery, those debates concerned means and ends. Defenders of Lincoln saw emancipation as the way to fulfill the unmet promise of the Union, while the presidents critics saw emancipation as an end in itself and warfare as an illegitimate means to sustain an unfree Union. In the broad middle of the political spectrum, self-styled moderates focused on the threat the Southern Slave Power oligarchy posed to the free-labor republicto economic development, majority rule, and moral disciplineand debated both which policies and what sort of political tone would bring reunion on the loyal states terms. Among conservatives, opposition to emancipation and centralization mixed with nostalgia for an imagined past, and debates focused primarily on how to differentiate the Union government from the Lincoln administration and how to support the first while rejecting the second.

The eight essayists in this collection examine disparate elements of the loyal citizenry. Each also engages with the scholarly literature in ways made evident in their notes and in the bibliographical essay that closes this volume. Frank J. Cirillo and Tamika Y. Nunley address the antislavery end of the political spectrum; Jack Furniss and William B. Kurtz the more conservative segments of public opinion; and Jesse George-Nichol, D. H. Dilbeck, Michael T. Caires, and Peter C. Luebke the political center. The essays provide new insights into well-known figures such as Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, the political philosopher Francis Lieber, the African American author/entrepreneur Elizabeth Keckly, the abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster, New York governor Horatio Seymour, and Attorney General Edward Bates. They also offer the perspectives of common soldiers, of the partisan press, of the clergy, and of social reformers. By showing how various interest groups claimed the mantle of moderation and tacked to the center, the essays offer a counterweight to recent scholarship that emphasizes the influence of Radical Republicans and Copperhead Democrats within their respective political parties.

Frank Cirillo leads off by exploring the idealistic, aspirational strain of Northern nationalism that was dominant among reformers. Abolitionists and Radical Republicans answered conservative calls for the Union as It Was by envisioning the Union as it might be, purged of slavery and committed to its professed creed of equality. Cirillo demonstrates that these reformers were divided into factions. The vast majority of antislavery immediatists, following the lead of William Lloyd Garrison, embraced the Union war and the chance to cast emancipation as a military necessity and nation-saving measure. But a small and vocal faction led by the formidable husband-and-wife team of Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster insisted that moral ends required moral means and refused to support the Union war until it explicitly became a fight for emancipation. Clinging to the image of abolitionists as uncompromising purists, the Fosters fought against the emerging pro-Lincoln consensus in abolitionism; even after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, they cast about for more radical politicians to replace him as the head of the Union war effort. These divisions over wartime means and ends translated into distinct positions on Reconstruction. While those in Garrisons camp celebrated wartime emancipation as the apotheosis of the abolition movement and a mission accomplished, the Fosters regarded the antislavery struggle as unfinished until blacks exercised full citizenship and prejudice itself was uprooted.

Tamika Nunleys essay on Elizabeth Keckly highlights the theme of black leadership in the Union war effort. While Keckly is best known for her role as Mary Todd Lincolns seamstress and chronicler of the Lincoln White House, Nunley brings to light her wartime political activism on behalf of black refugees and soldiers. Nunley shows how Keckly, through her leadership of the Contraband Relief Association, set in motion a vision for black equality and citizenship. Kecklys social and political organizingher skillful mobilization of the press, the churches, and indeed of her own celebrityboth addressed the dire material conditions in refugee camps and projected a message of self-determination and independence to the freedpeople of the District of Columbia. Like Cirillos essay, Nunleys points up the contingent nature of antislavery gains during the war. Black freedom in Washington, DC, was tenuous, as proslavery whites resisted complying with the 1862 DC abolition act. Keckly and her fellow female activists responded by promoting education and enfranchisement, invoking black mens and womens patriotism as a pillar of a more perfect Union.

Jack Furnisss essay accounts for the political success of the influential Democrat Horatio Seymour, who secured the governorship of New York in 1862. Furniss explains why a significant portion of the electorate was drawn to the Democrats message in 1862. Seymour appealed to voters, including swing voters such as former Whigs, by trumpeting the legitimacy of partisan opposition in wartime; by calling for a limited, constitutional war of conciliation, to speed restoration of the Union after Northern victory; and by rejecting Republican efforts to label all Democrats as anti-war and insisting instead that Northern politics pitted patriotic conservatives against disunionist radicals. In a careful balancing act, Seymour criticized the handling of the war but not the soldiers and generals who fought itand he sought to claim Lincoln for conservatism by shielding the president from the influence of radicals. Seymours hope that the war could be won without revolutionary measures against slavery or impeding the constitutional liberties of the North became increasingly chimerical as the war ground on. But, Furniss cautions, we should not project the stridently anti-Lincoln Copperhead rhetoric of 18631865 back in time, onto the wars early phases; mainstream Democrats initially tapped into a vast reservoir of national feelings to harness its latent electoral appeal. Seymours fealty was to a Union that could command the affection and loyalty of conservatives in the North, Border States, and South.