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Indiana Quakers Confront the Civil War

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The book Indiana Quakers confront the Civil War looks into how Quakers within the state of Indiana dealt with the Civil War. This is obvious. But what is not obvious is what the author, Jacquelyn Nelson, investigates. While Quakers are generally pacifists, many Quakers actively supported the war, up to and including becoming soldiers for the Union Army. How Quakers dealt with their fellow Quakers getting so involved with the War is also covered. I think the author did a good job covering the subject, but she seemed determine to repeat herself throughout the book, as if she was deliberately writing just to increase the page count.
On the subject of Indiana Quakers, the books divides the chapters as Quaker Background, Quaker Military Service, Why the Quakers Fought, How the Quakers Dealt with Army Life, the Home Front, and Opposition to the War. She mostly worked with examples, although she did include a few narratives, mostly as an appendix to the book. In fact, the appendixes are more than half of the book, as it includes primary sources as well as brief biographies of each Quaker found to serve in the War. There was no problem with the content within the book.
The book offers an interesting thesis: that Quakers were not entirely pacifistic during the Civil War and in fact, many actively participated in the War as the evidence of the Indiana Quakers shows. The author believes that most have overlooked the Quakers in Civil War study due to the fact that Quakers are such known pacifists that most historians simply concluded that the Quakers were not involved in the War so there was no need to study their actions during the War. This is a significant contribution to preexisting work. Never before had the subject of Quakers in the War been so thoroughly looked upon, and thus this book was a needed addition to history. However, the author does tend to try making certain details bigger than they are; there is little difference between six Quakers out of sixty in a Quaker community going to war and thirteen out of a community of 118 going to war, but the author seems to fail in her mathematics in treating this as a large difference. I did like that she gave details into why many Quakers fought; that it was mostly due to Christian patriotism and less to do with national patriotism. I also appreciated the all-too-brief comparisons between Quakers in the Civil War to those who experienced the American Revolution first hand.
Jacquelyn S. Nelson was certainly interested in this subject; it is unclear whether or not she was a Quaker or not. She was definitely sympathetic to all the Quakers in the book. However, she needed to look at the broader prospective of Quakers as a whole, in order that she could show whether or not Indiana Quakers were typical of other Quakers, or this was a simply an occurrence that happened in Indiana.
I have few complaints about the author's writing style. I had feared it would be much like other scholarly work: rather unreadable with its pompousness. Instead, the flow in reading this book was undisturbed; I just wish she did not repeat herself as much. There was little reason to separate the last two chapters in the book, as half of each was the same as the other chapter.
There is a sizeable audience for this book. Those who will find it the most useful are genealogists who will love the detailed listing of every Quaker the author found while doing her research on those who fought in the War. Professors and grad students who specialize in studying religious groups in the United States will be the most interested academics in this book. Civil War historians might see merit in this book, but they will probably wish for more frontline experiences for Quakers rather than so much homefront details.
In conclusion, Indiana Quakers confront the Civil War does a good job in relating its thesis to the reader. However, I think the author could have gone much deeper than she did; repeating how pacifistic Quakers are usually does not cover up the lack of depth of Quakers during the Civil War as a whole. Still, a worthwhile book this is.