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This article was downloaded by: [University Of Pittsburgh]On: 30 October 2014, At: 07:02Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
American Nineteenth Century HistoryPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fanc20
North Carolinians in the Era of the CivilWar and ReconstructionMarc Egnal aa York University , TorontoPublished online: 21 Apr 2011.
To cite this article: Marc Egnal (2011) North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil Warand Reconstruction, American Nineteenth Century History, 12:1, 117-118, DOI:10.1080/14664658.2011.559764
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2011.559764
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As we enter the sesquicentennial, scholars can only hope that works like Barney’s
continue to emerge.
BARTON A. MYERS
Texas Tech University
# 2011, Barton A. Myers
North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction
EDITED BY PAUL D. ESCOTT
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008
Pp. 320, $49.95 (hbk), $22.50 (pbk), ISBNs 978 0 8078 3222 6 and 978 0 8078 5901 8
This work, edited and introduced by Paul D. Escott, brings together an exemplary set
of nine essays on Civil War-era North Carolina. The authors include a mix of
established scholars and individuals at the beginnings of their careers. Without
exception, the pieces are well researched and well written. Like other first-rate local
studies, they have resonances far beyond their immediate focus. The chapters
examine the loyalties of North Carolinians, the activities of African Americans, the
changing status of women, and the struggle to define the ‘‘memory’’ of the war.
Three essays, not wholly in agreement with each other, examine the allegiances of
Tar Heels during the war. David Brown explores the outlook of whites in the
Piedmont counties. He notes that a small group backed the Union, while perhaps 20
percent of the citizenry joined Confederate ranks in 1861. Most individuals, however,
remained ambivalent. Brown concludes, ‘‘We need to . . . rediscover the large
number who occupied the middle ground’’ (p. 31). Chandra Manning examines
the gubernatorial election of 1864 and provides a different slant. She argues that
Zebulon Vance’s striking victory over William Holden reflected voters’ strong
commitment to the war and their rejection of Holden’s peace proposals. Vance
rallied his supporters by raising the specter of abolition. Barton Myers analyzes Union
general Edward Wild’s 1863 campaign in the Albemarle Sound area, and offers still
another reading of Tar Heel loyalties. In this richly textured piece, Myers looks at
questions of gender, race, and class, as well as the role of Confederate guerillas and
loyal plantation owners. Ultimately, the residents of the area sought the ‘‘middle
ground’’ that Brown discusses. Widely signed petitions advocated ‘‘neutrality’’ and
respect for property rights.
Two chapters look more closely at the changing fortunes of African Americans.
Judkin Browning discusses the response of blacks to emancipation. This essay
confirms recent studies. Browning shows that bondspeople eagerly embraced
freedom, braving hardships to reach the Union lines. They sought education, land,
and military service, even though racist Northerners often treated them with
condescension or spurned their demands. Paul Yandle examines the years from 1872
to 1875 and the advent of Jim Crow legislation. This essay analyzes the interplay of
race, region, and party against the backdrop of growing conservative strength and the
determination to pass more restrictive laws. Few white Republicans defended black
rights. But those in the eastern counties, which had many black constituents, were
American Nineteenth Century History 117
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more moderate than mountain Republicans. African American lawmakers did their
best to oppose the torrent of reaction.
While several pieces explore gender issues, two deal specifically with the status of
women. Laura Edwards argues that before the war, women, both black and white,
were regularly involved with the court system, and this participation only increased
with Reconstruction. Although women lacked legal status, the concept of the ‘‘peace,’’
in which the well-being of society was everyone’s concern, brought them into many
proceedings. Women testified as witnesses. On occasion, courts vindicated abused
slave women, when white men violated community norms. After the Civil War
women often initiated actions to assert their civil rights and address domestic issues.
Karin Ziff, focusing on the years from 1867 to 1871, looks at the challenges to
‘‘coverture,’’ the practice that reduced married women to dependent beings. The 1868
constitutional convention turned from other matters to grant female petitioners
absolute divorces for reasons, like abandonment, that courts had traditionally
rejected. Legislation adopted during 1868�69 improved women’s dower rights. Still,
these advances appear to be less than the ‘‘sea change in gender relations’’ that Ziff
claims (p. 214).
Finally, two studies explore the contested memory of the Civil War years. John
Inscoe discusses Cornelia Phillips Spencer’s book, The Last Ninety Days of the War in
North Carolina (1866). Along with condemning General William T. Sherman for his
wanton destruction, Spencer celebrated the Tar Heels as patriotic Southerners.
Observers, North and South, had alleged that North Carolina gave only half-hearted
support to the Confederacy. Spencer also defended two friends, Governor Zebulon
Vance (who had fled from Raleigh when Union forces advanced) and David Swain,
president of the University of North Carolina. Swain’s daughter, after a whirlwind
courtship, had married one of Sherman’s officers and Swain had welcomed the
Northern soldier into the family. Steven Nash’s chapter examines how partisans
contested and re-imagined Vance’s image in the decades after 1865. Using class
rhetoric, Republicans charged that Vance lived well during the war, reveling in the
luxury goods smuggled by blockade runners. Democrats countered that Vance’s sole
concern was the prosperity of North Carolinians, and that he had withstood
Richmond’s demands when necessary. As Populism and agrarian dissent roiled
North Carolina politics, partisans debated whether Vance could be claimed for the
‘‘common folk.’’ Vance, who lived to 1894 and served as Senator from 1878 to his
death, increasingly portrayed himself as a defender of white unity. After 1900
references to Vance declined, as Civil War partisanship grew less important in state
politics.
Essays as well executed as these, even though focused on a single state, shed light
on broader issues. Researchers investigating the depth of Southern patriotism, the
origins of Jim Crow legislation, the changing status of Southern women, or the
contested memory of the Civil War will benefit from these excellent studies.
MARC EGNAL
York University, Toronto
# 2011, Marc Egnal
118 Book Reviews
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