Copperheads, Finally

As I related way back in late February of '09 (click HERE for that), I enjoyed a lecture by a historian who visited campus here. After the lecture I promptly ordered her book, Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North.

The book sat a good while on my office's bookshelf since I have this whole professor/administrative gig, and I read lots of stuff in writing center studies, rhetoric, and composition studies. I finally got around to Copperheads this summer, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Civil War and the political maneuvering that went on during that time. It's not a dense read at all like some writing by academics. Weber's prose is lively, engaging, and concise, and she offers varied and interesting sources in her work.

Weber's book recounts both the politics and the events of the war since, as her argument goes, the two are symbiotic. In fact, she convincingly relates that Lincoln's chance at reelection in November of 1864 was dismal and quite improbable because voters felt the war was going nowhere, mired in a stalemate, with the Union suffering horrible losses. For example, from May to the end of July in 1864, "the Union had taken a hundred thousand casualties" (146). Even though, as Lincoln philosophized at one time, he hoped that voters would go along with the adage of "it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams" (142), voters were not inclined to vote for Lincoln but whomever the Democrats would put up as candidates.

What Weber uncovers is that soldiers were a significant factor in supporting the Republican ticket since the Democrats, under the influence of the Copperheads or "Peace Democrats," wanted simply to invite the Confederacy back into the Union even though, if people were listening to Jeff Davis, it was obvious the Confederate States of America wanted no part of coming back into the Union. They wanted to be an independent country. If I would have been a Union soldier and heard that the Democrats wanted to let the Confederate states back in after years of fighting them, I would have supported the Republican Party too. And the Democratic party's platform in 1864 didn't help matters either since they virtually ignored the sacrifice of soldiers fighting in the war.

But the most important factors that led to Lincoln's landslide victory in 1864 were these military victories: 1) the capture of Mobile Bay, 2) Sherman's occupation of Atlanta, and 3) General Sheridan finally winning battles throughout the Shenandoah Valley.

It was a really good read. And now it's on to A Rhetoric of Pleasure: Prose Style & Today's Composition Classroom.