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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
This book has a very interesting premise. I was really looking forward to reading it. I must say that I learned a lot, but I was overall underwhelmed with the book. I felt like the title implies that reconstruction would be part of the book. How else would you finish discussing the transformation of the south? It wasn't - the book ended more or less with the war. Additionally, the book really read like a thesis or term paper. Each paragraph had a beginning sentence with a statement and the following sentences of the paragraph provided details to prove the point. At times, this got repetitive and old -- especially when a lot of numbers were used to back up claims.
This book is a fascinating topic, and I enjoyed the comparison to Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" (having read that previously), but the book could have read much better and been more engaging. It felt like I was reading a history text book for school - not a historical book for fun...
This book is a fascinating topic, and I enjoyed the comparison to Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" (having read that previously), but the book could have read much better and been more engaging. It felt like I was reading a history text book for school - not a historical book for fun...
A very insightful and informative book that tells the untold part of the civil war, the non-military stuff that never gets covered or talked about. So well researched, cited, and written that you know it is thoroughly accurate.
This book has an interesting premise, but somewhat under delivers. While would have loved more of a focus on large plantations owners, there was instead much ink dedicated to a general civil war history. While this may have been done to be accessible to a wider audience it was not what I was hoping for.
"The world has not seen a nobler and grander war," Fredrick Douglass reflected at the time, than the one fought "to put an end to the hell-black cause out of which the Rebellion has risen."
dark
informative
medium-paced
dark
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
I went to public school in Texas in the ‘90s – ‘00s. As an adult I feared that I never really got a good education related to the civil war for a few reasons: 1) A lot of my history teachers were there employed mainly so they could coach various sports, and history wasn't really their passion/strength. 2) I knew several adults in my life who said that the civil war was about “states rights” come on…. 3) In recent years I've heard that many children's history textbooks were sanitized or had intentional errors in order to not make our past look so bad.
Prior to reading this book my understanding (and/or my memory) of the civil war was limited. I couldn't have said what years it happened in. I’ve heard about Gettysburg, the emancipation proclamation, and the underground railroad. But I really couldn't have told you what the daily lives of slaves were like, why the south was so adamant to succeed, and why they ultimately lost the war.
I learned SOOO much from this book! It’s super well written, really engaging, and very accessible to someone with limited civil war history knowledge and just chock full of things I’d never heard of before. It includs some real zingers like Lincoln wasn’t really even planning on freeing the slaves at all, he just wanted to reunite the country. Mind blown! There were very few parts that were boring (just some smaller sections about the battles which I didn’t really care about). It mostly focused on the politics at the time, the north and south’s evolving thoughts on slavery, the issues each side had, and how it affected the outcome of the war.
I took some notes while I read this book and I wanted to bullet point them here. This is not a comprehensive view of this book, just the parts I found surprising or interesting:
- It probably goes without saying that slaves lived under horrible conditions including poor housing and food, backbreaking and long labor, sexual assault from their masters, and selling of their family members to pay debts. They were seen as property.
- Slave owners only constituted about 1/4 of the southern population, but because they were the rich land owners of the time they had an outsized effect on the political stances that the South was known for. Slave owners were the upper class of the South, and they had the immense wealth and political power needed to start the war.
- There was a pretty good wind up to the war. During that time places like France and South America started to outlaw slavery and the northerns thought slavery would just slowly go away like it did in those places. From the South's perspective slavery was their entire economy and it couldn't just be eliminated. Various compromises were tried in order to keep slavery from spreading in the US, but ultimately the political anger of the South simmered for a good few years before war broke out.
- Slaves were probably just as up to date on the war and how it was going as their white counterparts. Any slaves that worked in the plantation houses would overhear the news about the war and then would quickly relay it to everyone else in their community.
- Like I said before the union population wasn't that interested in freeing the slaves at first except for a minority of abolitionist. The more that the union soldiers came in direct contact with slaves the more they saw exactly how slaves were treated the more they were likely to support the war for a moral reason.
- The confederacy thought that they would win the war very easily for a few reasons: 1) They believed they had a strong coalition of white people who wanted to keep slavery alive 2) there was a lot of optimism that it would be easy to beat the union army, that they wouldn’t pose much of a threat 3) They could force their slaves to work for the war effort. All three of these ended up being false, and oh so much more
- Lincoln was shot because a few days prior he gave a speech suggesting that in the future perhaps blacks could gain the right to vote.
- After the war, quite a few confederates fled to brazil and cuba were slavery was still legal. But slaves were too expensive, and they could never go back to owning slaves like they used to again. Many ended up returning back to the US.
<b>Lastly here are the many reasons that the south lost:</b>
- 1) They did not have a strong coalition of people who wanted to keep slavery. Only 1/4 of the population owned slaves. As the war dragged on, it became obvious to the non-slave owning poorer whites that they were fighting a war for the rich. Various draft laws that targeted poor whites while allowing rich whites to pay their way out of the draft which angered many, and caused a lot of division. The poor whites started to wonder why they were fighting a war that didn't even benefit them. The longer that the war went on, the more people would dodge the draft, or go AWOL, and the confederacy really struggled to keep their military numbers up.
- 2) The union army was not easily beat, and the war dragged on for many years. During that time it started to affect the southern economy and they started to have food shortages and riots because of it. Family members would write to their confederate soldier's relatives that it was time for them to come home and help with the food rather than with the war
- 3) At first slave owners were happy to volunteer their slaves for the war effort (doing menial labor not actually as soldiers). But several things kept happening that soured them on the idea. a) slaves that went off to the front lines came back with “new ideas” of freedom or were demoralized by the system of slavery and we're never “good slaves” again. b) They would share those ideas with the other slaves and “infect” them with ideas of freedom c) Some slaves that were close enough to the union lines were freed and would never make it back home. d) sending slaves to help with the war effort was always voluntary (b/c of small government ideals), and as the war went on less and less slave owners wanted to volunteer their slaves. It compounded the military shortage that the South was already dealing with.
- 4) They were constantly fighting battles on many fronts. a) They obviously had soldiers that needed to fight the union army b) Some soldiers had to say back near their homes to keep slaves from running away from plantations. c) Eventually with enough front-line soldiers deserting they needed other soldiers to bring them back into the army. All of these things forced their military power to be divided, and it was easier to defeat them. By the end of the war they had only a fourth of their military power that they had at the start.
- 5) It was never Lincoln's plan to free the slaves. But because the South was using their slaves as a military asset, he realized one way to defang them was to free any slaves that the union soldiers came across in order to prevent them from being used against the north. This was hugely controversial at the beginning. At first it was justified as “keeping war contraband away from the south” but this really helped turn the tide of war and eventually freeing the slaves became not just a military action but a moral one. Whenever union armies were close enough to free slaves they would. But even better, slaves would happily tell union soldiers where military strategic points of interest were in order to help the union soldiers. It was a double blow for the South. The South was slowly being deprived of its military power.
6) The confederacy was built on the idea of “states rights” aka that states have the right to choose if they could have slavery. They liked the idea of a more limited federal government that couldn’t tell you that you couldn’t have slavery. The problem with that is when you have a small government it's difficult to align all the states together and win a war. Confederate leaders had a lot of difficulty with drafting in different states, or pooling resources like guns and food for the war effort. Because the states had more control, the federal government had a hard time making a federal war plan very cohesive.
- 7) Individual slave owners were actually very selfish. There are a lot of things they could have done to help with the war effort and chose not to. For example the federal government said please grow corn for wartime food instead of cotton (a big money maker). Many confederate citizens ignore this because they cared more about their profits. Another example is they slowly stopped volunteering their slaves for war efforts. Any many paid money to avoid the draft. Despite the fact that it would have helped them win the war, most slave owners considered their Individual needs rather than the needs of the slave system. That's one way to shoot yourself in the foot!
- 8) The north kept freeing black slaves and in some cases allowing them to serve as soldiers. This is clearly devastating to the South because it removes one slave from helping them and it allows them to change sides in the war. Despite the fact that the confederacy was clearly losing, again and again they kept refusing to use black slaves as soldiers. Their entire confederacy was built on the fact that black people were inferior to them and they couldn't imagine supporting them in the same military regiments as white soldiers. They were also completely afraid that as soon as you gave a gun to a slave, they would immediately revolt. It wasn't until the very bitter end of the war that they even considered recruiting black slaves, but this was doomed to failure for multiple reasons. a) It took forever for this program to be implemented because a lot of people were angry about it b) the confederacy passed a law that only slaves that their masters agreed could join would be allowed to. In Exchange those soldiers would get their freedom after the war. But someone clever on the confederacy side that this deal isn't even that good because the north is promising freedom for all black people and the confederacy was only promising freedom for the soldiers alone. This meant that even if the soldier was freed his family and children would still be slaves. Why would they fight for the side that had the worst deal?! c) The confederacy was hoping to recruit 300,000 slaves and they only ended up getting less than 50 total.
- 9) Lastly, at some point the south reached out to Mexico and European countries for help and they were all like…….no thanks! Mexico has already banned slavery and Europe basically said “we don’t want to join the side that is losing”!
Prior to reading this book my understanding (and/or my memory) of the civil war was limited. I couldn't have said what years it happened in. I’ve heard about Gettysburg, the emancipation proclamation, and the underground railroad. But I really couldn't have told you what the daily lives of slaves were like, why the south was so adamant to succeed, and why they ultimately lost the war.
I learned SOOO much from this book! It’s super well written, really engaging, and very accessible to someone with limited civil war history knowledge and just chock full of things I’d never heard of before. It includs some real zingers like Lincoln wasn’t really even planning on freeing the slaves at all, he just wanted to reunite the country. Mind blown! There were very few parts that were boring (just some smaller sections about the battles which I didn’t really care about). It mostly focused on the politics at the time, the north and south’s evolving thoughts on slavery, the issues each side had, and how it affected the outcome of the war.
I took some notes while I read this book and I wanted to bullet point them here. This is not a comprehensive view of this book, just the parts I found surprising or interesting:
- It probably goes without saying that slaves lived under horrible conditions including poor housing and food, backbreaking and long labor, sexual assault from their masters, and selling of their family members to pay debts. They were seen as property.
- Slave owners only constituted about 1/4 of the southern population, but because they were the rich land owners of the time they had an outsized effect on the political stances that the South was known for. Slave owners were the upper class of the South, and they had the immense wealth and political power needed to start the war.
- There was a pretty good wind up to the war. During that time places like France and South America started to outlaw slavery and the northerns thought slavery would just slowly go away like it did in those places. From the South's perspective slavery was their entire economy and it couldn't just be eliminated. Various compromises were tried in order to keep slavery from spreading in the US, but ultimately the political anger of the South simmered for a good few years before war broke out.
- Slaves were probably just as up to date on the war and how it was going as their white counterparts. Any slaves that worked in the plantation houses would overhear the news about the war and then would quickly relay it to everyone else in their community.
- Like I said before the union population wasn't that interested in freeing the slaves at first except for a minority of abolitionist. The more that the union soldiers came in direct contact with slaves the more they saw exactly how slaves were treated the more they were likely to support the war for a moral reason.
- The confederacy thought that they would win the war very easily for a few reasons: 1) They believed they had a strong coalition of white people who wanted to keep slavery alive 2) there was a lot of optimism that it would be easy to beat the union army, that they wouldn’t pose much of a threat 3) They could force their slaves to work for the war effort. All three of these ended up being false, and oh so much more
- Lincoln was shot because a few days prior he gave a speech suggesting that in the future perhaps blacks could gain the right to vote.
- After the war, quite a few confederates fled to brazil and cuba were slavery was still legal. But slaves were too expensive, and they could never go back to owning slaves like they used to again. Many ended up returning back to the US.
<b>Lastly here are the many reasons that the south lost:</b>
- 1) They did not have a strong coalition of people who wanted to keep slavery. Only 1/4 of the population owned slaves. As the war dragged on, it became obvious to the non-slave owning poorer whites that they were fighting a war for the rich. Various draft laws that targeted poor whites while allowing rich whites to pay their way out of the draft which angered many, and caused a lot of division. The poor whites started to wonder why they were fighting a war that didn't even benefit them. The longer that the war went on, the more people would dodge the draft, or go AWOL, and the confederacy really struggled to keep their military numbers up.
- 2) The union army was not easily beat, and the war dragged on for many years. During that time it started to affect the southern economy and they started to have food shortages and riots because of it. Family members would write to their confederate soldier's relatives that it was time for them to come home and help with the food rather than with the war
- 3) At first slave owners were happy to volunteer their slaves for the war effort (doing menial labor not actually as soldiers). But several things kept happening that soured them on the idea. a) slaves that went off to the front lines came back with “new ideas” of freedom or were demoralized by the system of slavery and we're never “good slaves” again. b) They would share those ideas with the other slaves and “infect” them with ideas of freedom c) Some slaves that were close enough to the union lines were freed and would never make it back home. d) sending slaves to help with the war effort was always voluntary (b/c of small government ideals), and as the war went on less and less slave owners wanted to volunteer their slaves. It compounded the military shortage that the South was already dealing with.
- 4) They were constantly fighting battles on many fronts. a) They obviously had soldiers that needed to fight the union army b) Some soldiers had to say back near their homes to keep slaves from running away from plantations. c) Eventually with enough front-line soldiers deserting they needed other soldiers to bring them back into the army. All of these things forced their military power to be divided, and it was easier to defeat them. By the end of the war they had only a fourth of their military power that they had at the start.
- 5) It was never Lincoln's plan to free the slaves. But because the South was using their slaves as a military asset, he realized one way to defang them was to free any slaves that the union soldiers came across in order to prevent them from being used against the north. This was hugely controversial at the beginning. At first it was justified as “keeping war contraband away from the south” but this really helped turn the tide of war and eventually freeing the slaves became not just a military action but a moral one. Whenever union armies were close enough to free slaves they would. But even better, slaves would happily tell union soldiers where military strategic points of interest were in order to help the union soldiers. It was a double blow for the South. The South was slowly being deprived of its military power.
6) The confederacy was built on the idea of “states rights” aka that states have the right to choose if they could have slavery. They liked the idea of a more limited federal government that couldn’t tell you that you couldn’t have slavery. The problem with that is when you have a small government it's difficult to align all the states together and win a war. Confederate leaders had a lot of difficulty with drafting in different states, or pooling resources like guns and food for the war effort. Because the states had more control, the federal government had a hard time making a federal war plan very cohesive.
- 7) Individual slave owners were actually very selfish. There are a lot of things they could have done to help with the war effort and chose not to. For example the federal government said please grow corn for wartime food instead of cotton (a big money maker). Many confederate citizens ignore this because they cared more about their profits. Another example is they slowly stopped volunteering their slaves for war efforts. Any many paid money to avoid the draft. Despite the fact that it would have helped them win the war, most slave owners considered their Individual needs rather than the needs of the slave system. That's one way to shoot yourself in the foot!
- 8) The north kept freeing black slaves and in some cases allowing them to serve as soldiers. This is clearly devastating to the South because it removes one slave from helping them and it allows them to change sides in the war. Despite the fact that the confederacy was clearly losing, again and again they kept refusing to use black slaves as soldiers. Their entire confederacy was built on the fact that black people were inferior to them and they couldn't imagine supporting them in the same military regiments as white soldiers. They were also completely afraid that as soon as you gave a gun to a slave, they would immediately revolt. It wasn't until the very bitter end of the war that they even considered recruiting black slaves, but this was doomed to failure for multiple reasons. a) It took forever for this program to be implemented because a lot of people were angry about it b) the confederacy passed a law that only slaves that their masters agreed could join would be allowed to. In Exchange those soldiers would get their freedom after the war. But someone clever on the confederacy side that this deal isn't even that good because the north is promising freedom for all black people and the confederacy was only promising freedom for the soldiers alone. This meant that even if the soldier was freed his family and children would still be slaves. Why would they fight for the side that had the worst deal?! c) The confederacy was hoping to recruit 300,000 slaves and they only ended up getting less than 50 total.
- 9) Lastly, at some point the south reached out to Mexico and European countries for help and they were all like…….no thanks! Mexico has already banned slavery and Europe basically said “we don’t want to join the side that is losing”!
informative
slow-paced
This book was extremely helpful for a paper I had to write this term. Social issues are not something that were discussed in depth or at all in any class about the Civil War or as a person living in the modern South that I have experienced up to this point. This book does a deep dive into changes and issues throughout to society that played into the Civil War as a whole.
Excellent and accessible analysis of many of the causes of the Confederacy's failure. I learned a lot of interesting facts, especially things that happened in the last 6 months of the war, which didn't fully end until after Lincoln's assassination.
informative
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
fast-paced