Reluctant Rebels: The Confederates Who Joined the Army after 1861 (Civil War America) [Hardcover]

Kenneth W. Noe (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 15, 2010 | Series: Civil War America

After the feverish mobilization of secession had faded, why did Southern men join the Confederate army? Kenneth Noe examines the motives and subsequent performance of "later enlisters." He offers a nuanced view of men who have often been cast as less patriotic and less committed to the cause, rekindling the debate over who these later enlistees were, why they joined, and why they stayed and fought.

Noe refutes the claim that later enlisters were more likely to desert or perform poorly in battle and reassesses the argument that they were less ideologically savvy than their counterparts who enlisted early in the conflict. He argues that kinship and neighborhood, not conscription, compelled these men to fight: they were determined to protect their families and property and were fueled by resentment over emancipation and pillaging and destruction by Union forces. But their age often combined with their duties to wear them down more quickly than younger men, making them less effective soldiers for a Confederate nation that desperately needed every able-bodied man it could muster.

Reluctant Rebels places the stories of individual soldiers in the larger context of the Confederate war effort and follows them from the initial optimism of enlistment through the weariness of battle and defeat.


Reluctant Rebels places the stories of individual soldiers in the larger context of the Confederate war effort and follows them from the initial optimism of enlistment through the weariness of battle and defeat.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Noe provides his insights in a fair-minded manner. . . . We need more books like this one to document facts."
-The Review of Politics

"A must read. . . . Ground breaking . . . the best book out this year."
-Authentic Campaigner

"Noe has provided the Civil War enthusiast with a fascinating presentation of excellent research. His study fills a gap in our understanding of all the men who fought for the Confederacy."
-New York Journal of Books

"With insight and skill, Noe hands down some provocative judgments."
-Civil War Book Review

"[Noe's] book is one to be studied and admired."
-Journal of Southern History

"Well researched and finely written….An excellent work and highly recommended."
-Blue & Gray Magazine

"The writing is excellent, the research is complete and the analysis on target. . . . If you want a challenging, thought-provoking book, you will be hard pressed to find a better candidate."
-TOCWOC-A Civil War Blog

"Reluctant Rebels adds nuance and range in its answer to the well-worn question of why soldiers fought. It reminds readers of the varied motivations and experiences of Johnny Reb."
-Arkansas Historical Quarterly

"Ken Noe has crafted a thought-provoking, well-researched, poignant window into a neglected topic….Noe's book is important and begs to be read….Civil War historians and educated lay readers will grapple with this book and its underlying research for years to come."
-Southern Historian

"Noe admirably stays impartial and transparent in his research throughout. He has produced a significant study worthy of debate in the scholarship on Civil War motivations."
- The Journal of American History

"An absorbing study. . . . Uncovers some very interesting and thought-provoking material. . . . This excellent book provides a more complete portrait of Johnny Reb. . . . Highly recommended."
-Choice

"Absorbing and thought-provoking. . . . Such impressive scholarly analysis and writing, coupled with quality design and materials, make this a captivating volume that all students of the Civil War in general and the Confederacy in particular will want to read."
-Civil War News

"Those attracted to Civil War history and those interested in the interrelationships between culture and war in varied historical contexts should find this work of interest."
-The Courier

"Noe makes an important contribution to our understanding of Civil War soldiers in his well-written and entertaining work."
-The Alabama Review

"Scholars and the large audience of Civil War readers will find interesting insights in [this] book."
- H-Net Reviews

"Noe's command of the secondary literature is impeccable and his archival research nothing less than heroic. . . . A highly readable, judiciously argued book that fills a crucial gap in the literature on Civil War soldiers. It will be of interest to Civil War scholars and buffs alike."
-Journal of East Tennessee History

"Noe's deft analysis of primary sources…sheds light on a previously under-analyzed portion of the Confederate army….Reluctant Rebels will help readers better understand community, family, gender, and the complexity of Southern society during the Civil War."
-The North Carolina Historical Review

"While broad historical generalizations remain faceless, Noe personalizes the accounts….[His] sampling serves to create a situation in which the reader can more easily empathize with the motivations and actions of the men in question….The structure of his study and the conscientious approach to his research offer an excellent model for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for independent researchers."
-Virginia Libraries

"Readers will find this an interesting [study] on a previously unaddressed element of Civil War history."
-The Post and Courier

"Reluctant Rebels is a well-researched, highly readable book . . . . Anyone interested in Civil War history or the life of the Confederate soldier should definitely take a look at this offering."
-The Historian

"A valuable monograph, which will stand with books by James McPherson and Bell Wiley among standards on Confederate soldiers. . . . Noe presents insights not only into these late comers, but also into those who came early and remained throughout the war. . . . The publications of books like this one demonstrates the vitality of such study and the potential for public learning. . . . We need more books like this one to document facts."
-Review of Politics

"Compelling. . . . This superb study effectively engages previous scholarship and fills a neat niche in the literature."
-America's Civil War

"An absorbing study. . . . Thought provoking. . . . This excellent book provides a more complete portrait of Johnny Reb. . . Highly recommended."
-Choice

"A valuable monograph, which will stand with books by James McPherson and Bell Wiley among standard studies on Confederate soldiers….We need more books like this one to document facts."
-The Review of Politics

"This fine study . . . answers questions about motivation and enlistment that have hovered over the field for generations. . . . The strengths of Noe's book lie in his clear prose, deep research, and persuasive analysis."
-Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

From the Inside Flap

After the feverish mobilization of secession had faded, why did Southern men join the Confederate army? Noe examines the motives and subsequent performance of "later enlisters." He refutes the claim that they were more likely to desert or perform poorly in battle and reassesses the argument that they were less ideologically savvy than their counterparts who enlisted early. He argues that kinship and neighborhood, not conscription, compelled these men to fight. But their age often combined with their duties to wear them down more quickly than younger men, making them less effective soldiers.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (April 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807833770
• ISBN-13: 978-0807833773
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent but not for everyone May 5, 2010

By James W. Durney TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

We are enamored with first, in Civil War histories that means men who rush to enlist in 1861. Much of the social history of the war is from their viewpoint. Much of the battle history concentrates on these men and their units. Kenneth W. Noe does not slight these men but looks to the class of 1862 and how they differ from the initial enlistees. Using a sample of 320 men that by enlistment, draft or service as a substitute enter the Confederate army after the initial rush. He details their attitudes, feeling and experiences. While serving as our guide and keeping the narration moving, the author allows these men to "speak" for themselves whenever possible. This book is a thoughtful detailed statistical analysis of these men and by extension the thousands of similar men in CSA armies. This is not a glory of war advance the flag history. This is a personal detailed look at what is often an unpleasant and unwanted experience. It is a view of war we do not often see, where quite determination, comradeship and a sense of duty sustain men. This is the closest I have come to feeling what men in the Confederate ranks felt. The writing is excellent, the research is complete and the analysis on target.
The book contains three main sections: "When Our Rights Were Threatened", "Fighting for Property We Gained by Honest Toil" and "We are a Band of Brothers and Native to the Soil". Each section contains essays that illustrate the topic. This organization allows concentration on a specific topic in the area. The author has arraigned these essays and topics to build our understanding of the men and the differences from the early enlistees. Each essay is about twenty pages, all are thought provoking.
The introduction, "What They Did not Fight For" covers the basic methodology and introduces the subject building a foundation for the book. "Slavery" is an excellent essay covering both the role of slavery as a cause of the war and the role of slaves in the army. "Women" covers the problems associated with trying to manage a wife, family and farm by mail. This is a look at southern male attitudes coming to grips with realities they were unprepared for. "Hatred", "Comrades" and "Weariness" are subjects seldom covered. The soldier's words and Noe's analysis provide a powerful look at these almost forbidden subjects.
This is an excellent book! It is readable in a scholarly way and will make you think about the men and the war. Not being Battles and Leader, it will not get the attention it deserves. If you want a challenging thought provoking book, you will be hard pressed to find a better candidate.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Giving Late-War Confederates Their Due November 6, 2011

By William D. Hickox

Format:Hardcover

The study of Civil War soldiers has come a long way since the publication of Bell I. Wiley's classic 1943 work The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy. In the intervening decades an impressive array of historians built on Wiley's once-innovative approach of focusing on ordinary combatants. The last 23 years in particular have seen a large body of scholarship exploring the motivations that drove Americans to take up arms. Most of these works take issue with Wiley's assumption that soldiers were not motivated by ideology and assert that soldiers' writings indicate a widespread awareness of, and identification with, their national causes. For instance, it is no longer possible to convincingly argue that ordinary Confederates had little interest in protecting slavery, for historians have demonstrated that white Southerners had a personal stake in the white supremacy and bondage system upon which their society was built. Now Kenneth W. Noe has stepped into this vibrant field of scholarship with a book examining "later enlisters"--those Rebel soldiers who joined the war effort after the initial burst of volunteering.

Noe's introduction, titled "What They Did Not Fight For," places his work within Civil War soldier historiography and provides as good a summary of the topic as one can find. Yet in every case, Noe writes, historians have concentrated on the writings of especially patriotic volunteers, leading to "a voluminous literature on `Civil War soldiers' that is in actuality only a detailed study of the most motivated men who enlisted in the first year or so of the war ... Others are ignored or else shunted aside" (7). He particularly takes issue with James M. McPherson's assertion that "the prototypical unwilling soldier ... was a nonslaveholding Southern married farmer with small children who was drafted in 1862 or enlisted only to avoid being drafted" (7). Instead, Noe argues that "later-enlisting Confederates ultimately defy simple stereotyping and must be met on their own ground. Doing so offers a fuller portrait of them and all Confederate soldiers" (18). It is a diverse portrait as well, composed of the young and old, married and single, slaveholding and nonslaveholding. The wide-ranging book examines motivating factors such as nationalism, money, religion, women, and hatred of the enemy. Noe, while admitting that later enlisters did not often mention slavery in their writings, claims that this was because slavery and racism were an integral part of their worldview, and thus: "They did not defend it in letters home because they did not have to do so" (48). Noe finds that later enlisters were primarily motivated by "kin and neighborhood" rather than patriotic fervor (208). Additionally, and contrary to McPherson's depiction of them as cowardly "sneaks" who avoided battle, "[t]here is absolutely no evidence ... that more later enlisters did so than those soldiers who enlisted soon after Fort Sumter" (207)--despite the pervasive war weariness so poignantly expressed in their letters home. Reluctant Rebels demonstrates that later enlisters were typical in some ways while atypical in others.

Noe mined a remarkable array of published and unpublished primary sources to produce this relatively short but hard-hitting book. Letters, journals, and census data allowed him to construct a database of 320 later enlisting Confederates that graphs their age, occupation, wealth, marriage status, and whether or not they owned slaves. The book also includes a unique table charting "Soldiers Reporting War Weariness and Desertion, by Month," indicating that July 1863 saw a low point in Rebel morale. Noe was careful to use no primary sources dating from after 1865, and unlike some other historians, he names the people he cites lest he should "add to soldiers' namelessness or anonymity" (12).

Yet a certain degree of anonymity is inescapable. Noe's arguments almost entirely rest on the writings--which vary from a single letter to several hundred--of 320 men out of roughly four hundred thousand "reluctant Rebels." The small sample size is due to the fact that "surprisingly few later-enlisting Confederates wrote during the war. They were especially silent about their decisions not to enlist in 1861" (8). This paucity of documentation is particularly evident in Noe's discussion of the large segment of soldiers who were forced into the military as conscripts. "Given the real numbers of draftees in Confederates [sic] service," he admits, "their absence in the written record is striking. One is confronted by the looming shadow of a segment of Southern society, poor and illiterate, forced into the army without recourse and then lost to scholars who rely on traditional written records" (121). Noe's dilemma is that of anyone who studies marginalized and uneducated peoples, and it undoubtedly puts a question mark after some of his claims about the motivations of later enlisters. Yet he is careful to avoid depicting such men as a monolithic whole, and his arguments are convincing when applied to the majority of soldiers who were literate. Kenneth W. Noe has made a valuable contribution to Civil War history in illuminating a large but hitherto-ignored group of soldiers. Reluctant Rebels would be a useful work for historians of the conflict and deserves a place in courses on both the Civil War and war and society.