What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (Hardcover)

by Chandra Manning (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. For this impressively researched Civil War social history, Georgetown assistant history professor Manning visited more than two dozen states to comb though archives and libraries for primary source material, mostly diaries and letters of men who fought on both sides in the Civil War, along with more than 100 regimental newspapers. The result is an engagingly written, convincingly argued social history with a point—that those who did the fighting in the Union and Confederate armies "plainly identified slavery as the root of the Civil War." Manning backs up her contention with hundreds of first-person testimonies written at the time, rather than often-unreliable after-the-fact memoirs. While most Civil War narratives lean heavily on officers, Easterners and men who fought in Virginia, Manning casts a much broader net. She includes immigrants, African-Americans and western fighters, in order, she says, "to approximate cross sections of the actual Union and Confederate ranks." Based on the author's dissertation, the book is free of academese and appeals to a general audience, though Manning's harsh condemnation of white Southerners' feelings about slavery and her unstinting praise of Union soldiers' "commitment to emancipation" take a step beyond scholarly objectivity. Photos. (Apr.)
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From Booklist
Manning's subject--slavery as the prime cause of the Civil War--is hardly unusual, but what makes this study unique, provocative, and immensely valuable is her approach. She utilizes the letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers, all written during the war, to glean the attitudes, hopes, and even the fears of soldiers toward the institution of slavery and emancipation. Unlike many previous works on the subject, Manning ignores the writings of elites and emphasizes the opinions of common soldiers, North and South, white and black. Some of her conclusions are striking and likely to generate intense debate. Although acknowledging that many Union soldiers enlisted to preserve the Union rather than to fight slavery, she asserts that both slavery and emancipation were constant topics of discussion as early as 1861. She disputes that nonslaveholding Confederate soldiers (who were the overwhelming majority) fought primarily to defend hearth and home from Yankee invaders. Rather, she maintains that the defense of slavery was intimately tied to their sense of manhood, honor, and their place in the Southern social structures. A well-argued examination. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (April 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307264823
• ISBN-13: 978-0307264824
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #647,723 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Civil War Soldiers, April 9, 2007

By	Lawrence Weber "Lincoln Scholar" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What this Cruel War is Over, is Chandra Manning's first book. The book is about what ordinary soldiers thought about the relationship between slavery and the Civil War. Manning's book picks up where historians like Bell Wiley, Reid Mitchell, and James McPherson left off. The main idea of the book is that both the Union and Confederate soldiers understood that the "only" cause of the Civil War was slavery. Manning argues that the way each side responded to that fact shaped the outcome of the war. Union soldiers broad definition of Republican government as a great global experiment, and understanding of liberty as something moral and universal, created a less selfish soldier who was able to put the Union and emancipation first. Manning also argues that northern soldiers had clearer war goals that were more in line with the war aims of the government, and were less likely to be disillusioned than their southern counterparts. Manning makes the case that southern soldiers were more focused on individual and personal concerns rather than on central war aims outlined by a centralized Confederate government that was often unable to take care of its soldiers and citizens. The one universally accepted given by southerners was that slavery was better than anything the Union had to offer, and that emancipating the slave meant enslaving the white man. The book is a very good start for Manning, and is sure to be studied by historians and students of history hoping to gain a more complete understanding of the common Civil War soldier's experience.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reverent and Insightful, July 27, 2007

By	R. A. Rooney (Wrangell, AK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Chandra Manning's first book, "What This Cruel War Was Over," squarely rebuts the popular belief that Civil War soldiers did not care about slavery. Manning places in the lap of the reader countless letters penned by soldiers to families and loved ones attesting to slavery's role in starting the war, stirring up morale, and being the ultimate reason to fight on. Instead of leaving the telling of history to speeches by great generals and politicians, Manning firmly directs our eyes to the very words of the rank and file who gave the war meaning.

Personally, I found the incredible degree of dissent within both the Union and Confederate camps to be most interesting. Some idealistic Union soldiers protested slavery to assure liberty and freedom for all, while other soldiers kept rigidly racist views of slaves but still demanded an end to slavery because they felt slavery would inevitably lead to more clashes between the North and South. Southern soldiers, frustrated by the growing power of the Confederate government to seize their family's assets for the war effort, often questioned their own motivation for defending a government as invasive as the North. Still, fearful of a world in which former slaves might come to own their land and intermarry with white women, Southern soldiers persisted on in battle for the Confederacy. Even yet, some Confederate soldiers thought serving in the war might be a foot in the door to someday owning slaves.

Of particular interest to the reader will be letters from African-American Union soldiers who labored in battle not only to end slavery but to earn equal pay and respect from the army. Despite their additional hardships, these soldiers came to be known as some of the bravest and most dedicated soldiers on the battlefield. Letters reveal that white soldiers often came away so impressed that many began to reconsider their previously held racist ideologies.

An enjoyable read! Guaranteed to change the national conversation about the Civil War and the end of slavery.

4.0 out of 5 stars Slavery=The Civil War, May 24, 2009

By	Andrew Joseph Pegoda (Houston area, Texas, United States of America) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (Vintage) (Paperback)

Historians and the general public alike have long grappled over every imaginable issue when it comes to the Civil War (1861-1865). Who fought in the war and why? Was the war over states' rights or slavery? In her provocative new book What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (2007), Chandra Manning argues that that the soldiers fighting--in both the Union and in the Confederacy, black troops and white troops--were inextricably fighting over slavery and slavery alone. She supports her thesis by having examined soldiers' letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers collected from hundreds of archives across the United States. Her scholarship is also thoroughly grounded in secondary literature.

Southern troops "pledged their lives to the protection of slavery," and Northern troops loved Lincoln and pledged their lives to slavery's abolition, especially once the war started (19). At first Northerners fighting in the war were not necessarily fighting for African-American equality, but as they fought they saw the horrible conditions of slavery and became friends with African-Americans. As the war progressed everyone knew more and more that if the North won, slavery would be abolished. Southerners fought to protect slavery because without it their civilization, families, children, women, property, liberty, honor, and freedom would cease to exist. Even though the Confederate government curtailed the rights of Southern men, these men still believed the Union would be worse because they would be "slaves to the Yanks" (64). Both sides, however, believed they were completely right and that God was on their side.

Manning's prose flows smoothly. Furthermore, she provides a thorough explanation of the names, events, and places she references. What This Cruel War Was Over, however, has several questionable features. Manning's writing style is actually too simplistic. At the end of each chapter, she has two or three paragraphs that point by point exactly--sometimes with the same words--recount all of the arguments in that chapter. These concluding sections do not make broader comments or conclusions.

With a few exceptions, all of the arguments and supporting evidence in What This Cruel War Was Over can be stated in three sentences: Soldiers were fighting to abolish slavery in the North and to keep slavery in the South. The Union was noble and right. The Confederacy was wrong and evil. She neglects to mention that every Southern state except South Carolina sent at least one regiment to fight for the North. An important exception to these three sentences that Manning actually shares, for example, is that people in the South did not all rejoice at Lincoln's death. Elsewhere she says, "a tiny number of Confederate soldiers did begin very cautiously to regard the institution of slavery more critically" (170). All of her exceptions are quickly visited and quickly abandoned. Surely, there are countless exceptions.

Manning does stay on topic, but her focus is too narrow and biased. After about fifty pages it becomes very clear where the author's sympathies rest. While using and referencing countless letters, diaries, and newspapers, according to Manning's interpretation, the evidence all points to the same few conclusions. (On this note, knowing the actual number of letters she included in this study would be interesting. Also, how many were from Northern troops? Southern troops?) The Union is always discussed in a positive light and the Confederacy, directly or indirectly, in a negative light. I fully agree with many of the arguments and I fully agree slavery was and is wrong. But, when humans interact nothing is actually black and white. Manning presents a very polarized view of the North and South. Is it really feasible that once the Civil War started the North suddenly unified against slavery, as Manning would have readers believe? Why would so many Southern soldiers who did not own slaves fight for slavery? Would their regional loyalty be a factor? What about the illiterate soldiers? What about soldiers who deserted? How did soldiers' opinions differ according to their military rank?

What This Cruel War Was Over could have been a wonderful addition to the literature that attacks apologist explanations (states' rights) for the Civil War. But, this work of consensus history is more than misleading because it fails to recognize the complexity of humanity and their history. Furthermore, this monograph only recounts the same few very simplistic arguments over and over: the North is good, slavery and the South are bad. Because of the aforementioned weaknesses, Manning does not provide a convincing case for her thesis.