I started to respond to what you have said, but was interrupted by a thunderstorm and power outage, and it is just as well. I agree with you that the South has born “a disproportionate amount of the ire” in recent years when it comes to how the Civil War is remembered, but I don’t agree with your assessment of the reasons as to why this is true. I won’t go into that here, however, because if I do, then both of us will have overstayed our welcome. Thanks for clarifying, Jim. And–as always–thanks for providing the forum for discussion, Kevin. On April 9, 1865, “four years of bloody violent sacrifice were finally coming to a close, the United States would survive, and world history would be the better for it”, as stated above by Bob. I find that assessment of the situation to be fair and correct. Maybe we all will some day.

I would also like to argue that a good part of the Union targeting slavery was to remove a military, political and economic threat as much if not much more so than any altruism toward slaves.

And let’s not get into the moral contest as many atrocities were committed under US rule such as the extermination of Native Americans (kind of ironic that following the Union army’s “great transformation” much of that same army slaughtered or virtually imprisoned western tribes), the annexation of Mexico, or the shipping of slaves, etc. Fortunately, society’s ethics and laws are dynamic. This is why a static Confederacy is not comparable with a dynamic Union, but it mistakenly happens anyway and in my opinion leaving the South to bear a disproportionate amount of ire.

Jim,

Just one question: what do you mean by the phrase “Constitutionally-legal ownership of real property?” Are you referring to the “ownership” of men and women? If so, there is no liberty for anyone, and the government has, therefore, lost all legitimacy and authority. If you are defending the right to own another human being under the sanitized notion of defending “property rights”, you are not saying anything new or helpful. Neither are you saying anything that I, or the majority of the population of the United States (I would think and hope) could ever defend. It is interesting that this simple post prompted this discussion yet again. What you have said and what I have said are not the same thing. To clarify: I am certain that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. You seem certain that it was not. That is not the point I was attempting to make, and I won’t tax our host or his readers by belaboring my point again. Thanks, Kevin.

If the above is satisfied then what is Manning’s sampling technique? It must contain random sampling at its core or all results will be biased. If she did random sampling then how many soldiers does she need? Typically, polls seeking 95% confidence with +/- 3 percentage points in error need to sample at least 1,000 subjects drawn randomly. This number needs to be over 1,500 for a 99% confidence level. Does she need 1,000 Union and 1,000 Confederate? If so, she’s short here. If she did not apply random sampling then her results are biased and misleading.

Next, let’s look at Manning use of quotes to support her views. How and why were they selected? This is the perfect place to apply a process called “cherry picking” in order to reach pre-assumed conclusions. It would be important to see the distributions of the responses to know whether 10 letters or 400 randomly-selected letters supported a conclusion.

Manning also makes some of the most grandiose stretches of causation regardless of methodology that I’ve witnessed in the social sciences, and that is, concluding that simply because a soldier rode horses all his life, then he must be fighting to continue to ride horses. I would argue that it’s the idea behind the Constitutionally-legal ownership of real property that was at stake. If the government moves to take a liberty from its citizens, then what protection does that citizen have for all other liberties? None.

Next, I completely fail to see how one can conclude that protecting one’s family, community, state, and country from invasion, destruction, and conflagration can be perceived to have the single most important common denominator of slavery when the majority did not own slaves. And to assume that the ultimate desire of all whites was to own slaves seems incredibly negligent with no data to support it. Example, if some argue that Union soldiers motivations evolved during the war, then why don’t these same individuals argue, like other researchers, that similar changes in Confederate soldiers such as Confederates ever-more identifying military service with protection of home and family as the war progressed?

I also see the irony of applying the same reverse logic of Manning to Union soldiers. If Manning can make the amazing assumption that southerners fought for slavery simply because slavery was known in the South, then how can Union soldiers not be fighting for the sentiments that they plainly acknowledged from giving over 40% of their votes to the Democrats in 1860 and by plainly stating that Union was their primary objective. In addition, how can we explain significant numbers of slaveholding Union soldiers? How can actual brothers end up on different sides of the conflict? To state that the bulk of Union soldiers as a whole attacked slavery as anything other than both a punitive measure against the South and a way to replace their ranks seems unbelievable to me.

Another thing I didn’t like about Manning was her language regarding the failure of southerners to care much about anyone outside of their own family and tying this to more government authority. If you read her dissertation, then you’ll remember this. It portrayed modern progressive views that further revealed conjecture in place of objectivity.

I thought this review from Publishers Weekly said it best, “Based on the author’s dissertation, the book is free of academese and appeals to a general audience, though Manning’s harsh condemnation of white Southerners’ feelings about slavery and her unstinting praise of Union soldiers’ “commitment to emancipation” TAKE A STEP BEYOND SCHOLARLY OBJECTIVITY.” (emphasis added by me)

I think there were many whose beliefs, assumptions, and opinions were profoundly changed by the war itself. They saw African American soldiers bravely fight for their own freedom and the preservation of the Union. They saw thousands flee their masters. Benjamin Butler, John Logan, George Thomas to name just a few prominent men. I’m sure there were countless others whose names we’ll never know, and I’m sure there many were Southerners.

I appreciate the comment, but this has very little to do with Manning’s study. You may want to take the opportunity to read it given your concerns. I assure you that her interpretation is not as narrow as you make it out to be.

Thanks for responding, Kevin.

What you have stated above is my problem with the study, and with many other studies. I am not, therefore, saying that slavery was not the reason the Civil War was fought, as I have stated before. It was the reason the war was fought. Every single Southern soldier did not have the preservation of the institution of slavery on his mind every hour of the day as he went into battle, however, in my opinion, anymore than every soldier in the bush in Vietnam thought every hour about defeating communism. We have covered this before, and I thank you for having the patience to revisit this issue. It is the assumption behind the theory that is so troubling–the assumption of a morally superior North. That is a narrow view of what constitutes a moral action. It is easy to paint the Southern soldier as totally degenerate and less than human. (I am not saying Manning does this. I am making an overall point.) In contrast, it is easy to paint the Northern soldier as heroic, even though we are in a post heroic age. The only heroes in this cruel war were the black men and women who survived it, and who overcame the legacy of slavery. On the other hand, it was time for the Union soldiers who did begin to understand the magnitude of the devastation caused by the institution of slavery to be recognized and for them to take their place in history, and Manning and other scholars have helped to contribute to this. It seems that this was done at the expense of the Southern soldier, however. I can only give you examples from my own backyard, Kevin. But if my ancestor I referred to above, had been a rabid racist who had aspired to become a slaveholder some day, and who had been waiting impatiently for his chance to become a slaveholder, and who went off to war to protect the institution of slavery so that the South could win the war and he could achieve his dream of becoming a slaveholder, then why, after the war was over, did he set the example that became the key to the interaction of my family with the black community in our area for generations in our small microcosmic slice of history that mirrors this much bigger history–ie, he had a black man sit down at the table with him to eat one day–he, a Confederate veteran. That happened. It is not a myth. Where did he come from? He went beyond the entire structure of society in both the North and the South. Did the war teach him this, or did he know it before he went to war? I know some of what his father was thinking as he went off to the Battle of Greenville, Tennessee, because he recorded a will in which he left his horse to his son. He was subsequently killed. Was he thinking about the preservation of the institution of slavery, even though he did not have any slaves? As far as I can tell, he was thinking about his horse and how his son would need it to keep plowing. There is a question that is not being answered: how are white Southerners to be portrayed in the history of our nation? Pariah? Parody? What is the role of the white southerner in American history? Thanks, Kevin for your time and for the respect you show for all points of view. I know you don’t agree with me. That makes me respect you more for continuing the conversation, and for attempting to understand. My next door neighbor in college was from New Jersey as well. He was open minded, too. Maybe that is a New Jerseyian trait. My apologies for the length of this. This subject can’t be covered in a few words, or at least I don’t know how to cover it in a few words. Sherree

I appreciate the comment, but I honestly don’t know what you are objecting to in Manning’s study. Did you read it? Please be specific as to which of her arguments you are referring to here. Please keep in mind that I do not believe the book is without problems, but I can point to those if pressed.

No, she does not argue that southern soldiers fought “exclusively”. What she concludes is that slavery was a crucial component in understanding a wide range of factors that motivated white southerners. Manning is perfectly clear in laying out the background of her statistical survey. Of course there are problems with any analysis of Civil War soldiers given the bias of the available documents, but this is not an argument against Manning since it is a challenge that all historians face. I am wading my way through it in analyzing letters related to the Crater. You do your best. I am not suggesting that Manning gets it right and that there are no shortcomings, but she offers an important interpretation nonetheless. Here is my review of the book for whatever it’s worth:

Ever since Bell I. Wiley published his seminal studies, Johnny Reb (1943) and Billy Yank (1952) historians have examined Civil War soldiers to better understand, among other issues, the history of race relations, class conflict, ethnic identity, and national memory. One of the central questions that have emerged in recent years addresses why men went off to fight in 1861 and how they persevered through four years of horrific bloodletting. Historians such as Gerald Linderman, Reid Mitchell, Earl J. Hess, Randall Jimerson, and James McPherson have all offered explanations that explore a wide spectrum of motivating factors such as Victorian concepts of manhood and courage as well as religion, along with rich descriptive accounts of how the realities of battle and camp life forged strong bonds of esprit de corps and camaraderie in the ranks that often outlasted the war itself. While Wiley and others failed to explain the ways in which Americans framed the war in the abstract language of politics and ideology, most historians today acknowledge that the men on both sides of the Potomac were motivated by competing definitions of self-government, equality and liberty, along with competing assumptions concerning God’s expectations as well as the proper balance between government, society, the family and the individual.

Chandra Manning builds on this scholarship not by challenging this wide net cast by her fellow historians, but by arguing that at the center of these competing regional views lay the institution of slavery:
The problem, as soldiers on both sides saw it, was the opposing side threatened self-government. It threatened liberty and equality. It threatened the virtue necessary to sustain a republic. It threatened the proper balance between God, government, society, the family, and the individual. And no matter which side of the divide a Civil War soldier stood on, he knew that the heart of the threat, and the reason that the war came, was the other side’s stance on slavery. (p. 21)

Manning surveys the archival records of 657 Union and 477 Confederate soldiers, along with regimental newspapers, to tell the story of how slavery and race influenced the men who volunteered and fought through the Civil War. She surveys soldiers from all theatres, native-born and immigrant Union enlisted men, non-slaveholding and slaveholding Confederate soldiers, and United States Colored Troops. For those familiar with the relevant historiography many of Manning’s interpretive points will sound familiar. In 1997 James McPherson published With Cause and Comrades (Oxford University Press), which provided one of the most sophisticated interpretations of how slavery and race shaped the political and ideological outlooks of soldiers in both armies. Manning adds to the debate by analyzing these views over time in hopes of uncovering the often-subtle ways in which the soldiers’ statements concerning slavery evolved.

Perhaps one of the most interesting claims made in this book is Manning’s contention that Union soldiers advocated for emancipation as early as the second half of 1861, ahead of civilians, political leaders, and officers, and a full year before the Emancipation Proclamation. “Enlisted soldiers came to the conclusion that winning the war would require the destruction of slavery,” writes Manning, “partly because soldiers’ personal observations of the South led many to decide that slavery blighted everything it touched.” (47) Manning’s claim that observations about the horrors of slavery and their usefulness to the Union war effort must figure in any causal analysis of emancipation compliments research by Ira Berlin who also maintains that interaction between slaves and soldiers steered the Lincoln administration towards emancipation. Such a bottom-up analysis places Civil War soldiers at the very center of the events that led Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862. Most Northerners had little direct contact to its realities before the war apart from various printed sources, so whom and what they saw in the South dramatically shaped their thinking.
It is important to note that Manning does not conflate slavery and race when interpreting the written record left by Union soldiers. She clearly demonstrates this in her analysis of white Union soldiers who took part in the battle of the Crater in July 1864. The failure of the Union Ninth Corps to breach the Confederate lines at Petersburg along with the participation of a division of United States Colored Troops provided an easy target for soldiers who searched for an obvious scapegoat, and their frustrations were overwhelmingly voiced in overtly racist terms. Still, by 1864 there does appear to be sufficient evidence, according to Manning, that a significant number of soldiers felt compelled to confront their own racial prejudices, though they varied in the degree to which they seriously considered the concept of racial equality.

While the notion that Union soldiers did in fact pay careful attention to the issues of slavery, race, and emancipation is an important corrective to our tendency to see Civil War soldiers as apolitical, Manning’s conclusions about Confederate soldiers is important on a number of levels. Most importantly, Manning’s emphasis on placing slavery at the center of her analysis of Confederate soldiers will challenge those in certain circles to rethink assumptions of how slavery figured into the lives of most white southerners. While other issues certainly animated Confederates at different times, according to Manning, the issues of race and slavery served to focus the army. She examines the ways in which Confederate soldiers’ beliefs that abolition would erase the privileges of white manhood, endanger their families, and destroy the very fabric of Southern society motivated even non-slaveholding Confederates to fight. Internal fissures may have threatened the unity of the Confederacy, but these problems never trumped the importance of defending the “peculiar institution.” Regardless of status white southerners held to the belief that the maintenance of slavery guaranteed their respective place in the political/social hierarchy. More importantly, they feared that defeat would likely lead to race wars and miscegenation.

When focused on Confederates Manning’s analysis takes on a reductionist tone in its tendency to interpret a spectrum of reasons for joining the ranks as an extension of one basic motivation. While both sides claimed to be fighting for freedom and their understanding of the Revolution, Confederate notions could not be divorced from individual interests, or from slavery. Manning provides ample evidence of how various arguments can and should be understood within the context of slavery. Slavery played many roles,” according to Manning which non-slaveholders considered to be vital to themselves and their families.

Even the argument that Confederates were defending hearth and home must be understood ultimately as a defense of slavery. Few southerners believed that the war would drag on to a point where “yankee” invaders actually penetrated into the Confederacy. Accordingly, letters including promises to defend home and loved ones dramatized the myriad ways in which slavery impacted the lives of white southerners on a personal level. Manning concludes that Confederates were committed to defending their property as an expression of his “understanding of liberty.” Non-slaveholders did not have to own slaves to understand the necessity of its survival. Their individual freedom was guaranteed only with continued enslavement of southern blacks. The institution of slavery guaranteed ideas of liberty since it guaranteed white egalitarianism and prevented the amalgamation of the races. “Non-slaveholding Confederate soldiers regarded black slavery as vital to the protection of their families, interests, and very identities as men,” writes Manning, “and they relied on it to prevent race war.” (39) The survival of their families through Confederate independence also included the hope of one day becoming slave owners themselves.

What This Cruel War Was Over will no doubt give professional historians and Civil War enthusiasts a great deal to ponder. However, it is the latter group that stands to benefit the most from this study given the continued resistance in some circles to acknowledging the central role that slavery played in both the cause and outcome of the war. A quick perusal of message boards, blogs, and listservs suggests that a wide range of readers are indeed reading and discussing the book. Manning’s study reminds us that the Civil War was not simply a slugfest between two armies, but a war about whether the United States would continue to be a slave-owning nation, and that it was the soldiers themselves who figured prominently in the outcome of that contest.