Far from being a monolith with unanimous leadership loyalty to the cause of a separate nation, the Confederacy was in reality deeply divided over how to achieve independence. Many supposedly loyal leaders, civilian as well as elected officials, opposed governmental policies on the national and state levels, and their actions ultimately influenced non-support for military policies. Congressional differences over arming the slaves and bureaucratic squabbles over how to conduct the war disrupted the government and Cabinet of President Jefferson Davis. Rumors of such irreconcilable differences spread throughout the South, contributing to an overall decline in morale and support for the war effort and causing the Confederacy to come apart from within.
When asked to make sacrifices, civilian leaders found themselves caught in the dilemma of either aiding the Confederacy or losing money through poor utilization of slave labor. To sustain profits, the business and planter classes often traded with the enemy. Upon consideration of arming the slaves, many members of Congress proclaimed that the war effort was not worth the demise of slavery and preferred instead to take their chances with the Northern government. Cultural leaders, clergy, newspapermen, and men of letters claimed their loyalty to the war effort, but often criticized government policies in public. By asking for financial support and instituting a military draft, the national government infuriated local patriots who wanted to defend their own states more than they desired to defeat the enemy.
Introduction
The Changing Loyalties of James Henry Hammond
Fears for the Future: A Consideration of Reluctant Confederates' Arguments Against Secession, the Confederacy, and Civil War
The Speakers of the State Legislatures' Failure as Confederate Leaders
Disloyalty in the Confederate Congress: The Character of Henry Stuart Foote
The Contributions of the Southern Episcopal Church to Confederate Unity and Morale
"Personal Remarks Are Hazardous on a Crowded Riverboat;" Mary Boykin Chesnut and the Gossip on Confederate Divisiveness
A Consideration of the Causes and Effects of Slave States Leader's Disloyalty to the Confederacy
Index
Reviews
Wakelyn's study sheds valuable light on this important group of leaders as well as compels scholars to reconsider the entire political foundation of the Confederacy.—Civil War History
Wakelyn, the author of several books on the US Civil War, argues that leaders in the slave states disloyal to the cause of the Confederacy were not a monolithic group. The author analyzes the motivations and policies of three groups of dissenting prominent Southern politicians, some of whom served in the Confederate Congress: Southern loyalists to the Union, conditional Successionists, and committed-from-the-beginning Successionists. He also discusses how the Southern Episcopal Church contributed to both the Confederate unity and division.—Reference & Research Book News
