In this five-part review of Civil War Era literature at the Virginia History Blog, we will take a look at period topics in politics, war commands, home front, economy, slavery and memory. Turning to politics, “Crucible of the Civil War” is a series of essays looking at the Virginia experience from secession through post-war commemorations. “Cry Havoc!” examines three critical months from Lincoln’s inauguration including momentous developments in Virginia.
“John Tyler” traces the career of a prominent Virginian from state elective offices, Congressional seats, a presidential administration and finally pivotal roles in the secession crisis as an attempting to broker peace and Union and then as a partisan Confederate. “Lincoln and the Decision for War” documents the nationalism as a political force in the North that sustained a reunifying war, while “Mr. Lincoln Goes to War” speculatively denies its very existence.
Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia
Edward L. Ayers, Gary W. Gallagher and Andrew J. Torget edited Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration in 2006. It is available from the University of Virginia Press, on Kindle, and online new and used.
Eight essays from young scholars and two from their UVA mentors explore various aspects of Virginia’s political experience in the Civil War. Although once in the Confederacy, sectional divisions resumed in easterly Virginia, but Confederate Virginia still developed a substantial sense of national purpose in the war experience. Slavery continued in importance as a unifying interest. The Valley showed a “zealous” desire to protect their slavery investment, slave hiring for the war effort expanded and domestic slave trading persisted as a viable market. As emancipation beckoned with the approach of Union armies, the practice of slavery allowed “varying degrees of black autonomy”.
The concept of “respectability” became a social glue for Confederate society of all ranks, resulting in the ostracism of family members with Unionist views of honor and duty such as West Point generals George H. Thomas and Philip St. George Cooke. Postwar adjustment included both the Ladies’ Memorial Association advancement of the Lost Cause interpretation of the conflict, as well as widespread applications for amnesty to restore citizenship and claims for restitution of material losses.
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Cry Havoc!
Nelson D. Lankford wrote Cry Havoc! The Crooked Road to Civil War, 1861 in 2007. It is available from Penguin Books, on Kindle, and online new and used.
This is an account of American political history spanning about three months from the inauguration of Lincoln, March 4, 1861, to the “rump Congress” of Upper South Unionists convening in Frankfort, Kentucky, May 27, 1861. The daily news was at once war drums and peace proposals, both accurate and misleading, and all immediately communicated nationally by electrified telegraph.
As of March 4, only seven states had resolutions to secede; eight slave states remained torn between the epicenters of Washington DC and Montgomery AL. Strong Unionist sentiment was manifest in the upper and border South, yet they had convened conventions to “wait and see” developments in the Lincoln administration. Lankford narrates not only cause and effect of actions and decision, but also the consequences of inaction and indecision. Virginia is featured in an accounting of John Brown’s Raid, its Richmond Convention, the seizure of Harpers Ferry and the destruction of federal ships at Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth.
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John Tyler
Edward P. Crapol wrote John Tyler: The Accidental President in 2006. It is available from the University of North Carolina Press, on Kindle, and online new and used.
Before his reputation was eclipsed as the “traitor” president, John Tyler had been Virginia Assemblyman, Governor, Congressman and U.S. Senator. His expansionist policy promoting Texas annexation was meant to preserve slavery and the Union. In the final moments before the outbreak of hostilities, Tyler chaired the Washington Peace Convention of Congressmen in 1861.
Tyler sought American influence in Hawaii and legitimized trade with China, seeking a national destiny in expansion and the spread of democracy. But once out of office, he was increasingly a defender of “southern rights”, and in Virginia’s Richmond 1861 Convention, he embraced secession. Tyler then served in the Confederate Provisional Congress before Virginia’s referendum ratifying a resolution to secede. Yet this son of Jefferson’s college roommate sought not to expand slavery per se, rather he believed the dispersion of black population was a necessary evil preliminary to gradual emancipation and colonization.
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Lincoln and the Decision for War
Russell McClintock wrote Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession in 2008. It is available from the University of North Carolina Press, on Kindle, and online new and used.
McClintock argues that the Civil War came about as warfare due to the North’s belief in “self-government and the rule of law, institutionalized in the constitutional system.” The shooting started not at resolves of secession, but when the Northern states supported the federal government in stopping their realization.
Northern political culture was transformed from a status quo accommodation with slave interests that supposed the Union could be preserved by compromise, to the assertion that the Union could only be saved through the use of force.
McClintock focuses a narrative that progressively tightens its scope from ideology to narrowing political options, to Lincoln’s mastery of his cabinet, to answering cannon salvos aimed at Fort Sumter. Despite the maneuverings of William H. Seward and his political boss Thurlow Weed, Lincoln’s outsider status was elevated in the personal interaction editing the Inaugural Address. The common nationalism that had been hidden in antebellum partisan battles came to the fore to sustain a war effort that ensured that the nation remained united.
To buy “Lincoln and the Decision for War” on Amazon, click here.
Mr. Lincoln Goes to War
William Marvel wrote Mr. Lincoln Goes to War in 2006. It is available from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, on Kindle, and online new and used.
Marvel speculates that most Americans did not mourn the prospective end of the Union; war was brought on by Lincoln’s personal ardor that motivated reactionary and dictatorial efforts to impose federal control over legitimate states rights to slavery and secession. The Confederate batteries acting at the direction of Jefferson Davis were tricked into firing the first shot, and the Confederates would have upended their “cornerstone” Constitutional provision establishing a slave-based republic by abolishing slavery.
Although Republican Lincoln and his Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas were the two largest vote getters in the 1860 presidential campaign netting 70% of the vote, and both had publically promised to hold the Union together by force during the campaign, Marvel supposes that a practical political option in the Northern states included allowing the states to secede unchallenged. The enabling Constitutional Amendment allowing for legal secession failed in Congress with southern state delegations present. The reviewer at the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography concluded, “Marvel seems too willing to bend elements that do not fit his thesis into shapes that do not reflect history.”
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Additional history related to Virginia during this time period can be found at the Table of Contents of TheVirginiaHistorian website on the page for Antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction, 1820-1883. Titles are organized by topics, political and economic Virginia, social history, gender, religious, African American, and Wars in Virginia 1750-1824.
General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
Note: Insights for these reviews include those available from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of the Civil War Era, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.