Disloyalty in the Confederacy [Paperback]

Georgia Lee Tatum (Author), David Williams (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0803294417 | ISBN-13: 978-0803294417

Georgia Lee Tatum taught for many years at Mississippi Delta State Teachers College (now Delta State University). Introducing this Bison Books edition is David Williams, a professor of history at Valdosta State University in Georgia. He is the author of "Rich Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Disloyalty in the Confederacy definitely puts to rout the belief, once common, that 'every man, woman and child stood behind Jefferson Davis and the Stars and Bars in support of the Confederacy.'' . . . [It] brings to light much hitherto unrevealed information about the activities of those who carried on what might be called a counter-rebellion during the War between the States."-New York Times Book Review (New York Times Book Review )

"Though 600,000 men out of a population of 8,000,000 whites offered their services to the Confederacy in the first year of the Civil War, before its close disaffection and active disloyalty in every Confederate state had seriously weakened the Southern cause. The reasons for this disaffection were many: loyalty to the Union and apathy toward secession, the resentment of poor whites at being drafted to fight ''a rich man''s war,'' an intense sectionalism within the seceding states themselves, the pacifist influence of certain foreign and Quaker groups. . . . A solid and well documented study."-New Republic (New Republic )

"This is the sort of book necessary to balance accounts of the Southern Confederacy. Heretofore, the impression has been too often left that the South fought as a unit with a common purpose."-Journal of Southern History (Journal of Southern History )

About the Author

Georgia Lee Tatum taught for many years at Mississippi Delta State Teachers College (now Delta State University). Introducing this Bison Books edition is David Williams, a professor of history at Valdosta State University in Georgia. He is the author of Rich Man’s War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803294417
• ISBN-13: 978-0803294417
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,319,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars So Much for the "Homogenous" South, February 2, 2009

By 

G. Patton "garules" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Disloyalty in the Confederacy (Paperback)

This book is an eye opener for anyone that believes that the South fought the Civil War as a cohesive society -- there was plenty of unrest, infighting, secret societies, antiwar groups, and not a few killings of neighbors by neighbors during the Civil War. The discord grew as the war wore on. This is an excellent, concise account of those turbulent years.

3.0 out of 5 stars Southerner and Confederate not the same thing, August 5, 2007

By 

bjcefola (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disloyalty in the Confederacy (Paperback)

This work is a survey of disloyalty and outright treason among confederate troops and civilians during the civil war.

First published in 1934 as a an expanded doctoral thesis, this work was seminal in civil war historiography for knocking down one of the legs of the "Lost Cause" that the south was united in it's desire to fight the north. It's well known that border states like Tennessee and Virginia were divided over secession, but this work makes clear that even deep south states such as Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama had significant movements dedicated to undermining confederate war efforts.

The work does not go into analysis, and questions about the impact of the anti war movements, or a comparison of such movements between the north and the south are not answered.

Worth three stars for the portrait of life in the rural south during the war.