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The Civil War #14
Twenty Million Yankees: The Northern Home Front
Beautifully bound and illustrated volume on the Civil War featuring Twenty Million Yankees, the Northern Home Front. This book covers the civilian side of the Union war effort. Chapters chronicle the anti-war movement, the ways in which the war affected the Northern economy, recruiting soldiers for the Union army, and Northern politics.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 3, 2019
For such slim volumes , the Time-Life Civil War set is a very well researched, and well written series.
This volume, discussing the internal politics and societal crisis of the North, honestly contained alot of information that was mostly new to me. In my own studies (far more varied than just the War Between the States), I have focused primarily on the Confederacy and their armed forces, for reasons of an ongoing project I hope to bring for publication some day. The Northern home crisis, and crisis this volume makes clear it was, is something I had a bare bones knowledge of, but not a deep understanding of.
This book goes into the Copperhead movement (the Northern anti-war movement), the bitter political fighting between the Democrats and the Republicans, as well as the splits between both parties with their radicals and their moderates. The corruption of the military industrial complex is not a 20th century invention, but one dating back to the North in the Civil War. This book took a good look at the corruption and dangerous working conditions of the industry needed to win the war.
The level of racism within the North was surprisingly well covered, and was the only aspect of the Northern homefront I was already familiar with. The opposition to the draft resulted in violence in many areas, not just New York City, and blacks tended to suffer more than anyone else.
In fact, the North had a truly hard time finding recruits post 1862, when the pro war sentiment had largely been evaporated by the boys coming home either mutilated by Southern bullets or shells, or in closed pinewood boxes. The chapter on Northern recruitment went into the brutal nature of Northern conscription, and I was a little shocked at how often draft dodgers were shot. It isn't illegal in times of war, but rarely done outside of the Civil War. And the North was fairly ruthless with those who tried to evade conscription.
For me the biggest revelation was the voting fraud that took place during the war in favor of the Republicans.
It was not uncommon for Union troops to be stationed at polling locations to intimidate Democrats or outright arrest them. And during the 1864 election, soldiers who voted for McClellan often had their ballots shredded before they were counted, or illegally switched in the mail for Republican ballots (or simply were not allowed access to Democrat ballots).
One thing that often doesn't get a mention was just how unpopular the Emancipation Proclamation was in the North. The fear of cheaper Black labor taking the manufacturing jobs was a very common thread throughout the discussion, as was the fact that the North wanted to end slavery (both as a means to secure colonizeable land for Whites, but also to eliminate economic competition from the South), but had zero interest in integration with freed Blacks or those already born in the North as freemen.
This book, however, was not just an expose of how unjust the North was or how complex the story of the Civil War truly is (something definitely lost in the modern telling in the generation since this series was printed), it also highlighted the charity and humanity of the common people, especially the women, of the North.
The Sanitary Commission, the work of the nebulous Red Cross and the likes of Clara Barton were well covered as was the care for the so many thousands of dreadfully wounded young men and boys coming from the meat grinder of the South.
This book was a refreshingly complex look at a truly complex subject matter. This was not a simplistic good guys versus bad guys narrative as so much of modern 'history' tends to be. This was a bare bones look at the skeletons in the North's closets, and a hard nosed investigation into the injustices the war meted out to the average Northern Yankee.
Definitely a highly recommended little book.
This volume, discussing the internal politics and societal crisis of the North, honestly contained alot of information that was mostly new to me. In my own studies (far more varied than just the War Between the States), I have focused primarily on the Confederacy and their armed forces, for reasons of an ongoing project I hope to bring for publication some day. The Northern home crisis, and crisis this volume makes clear it was, is something I had a bare bones knowledge of, but not a deep understanding of.
This book goes into the Copperhead movement (the Northern anti-war movement), the bitter political fighting between the Democrats and the Republicans, as well as the splits between both parties with their radicals and their moderates. The corruption of the military industrial complex is not a 20th century invention, but one dating back to the North in the Civil War. This book took a good look at the corruption and dangerous working conditions of the industry needed to win the war.
The level of racism within the North was surprisingly well covered, and was the only aspect of the Northern homefront I was already familiar with. The opposition to the draft resulted in violence in many areas, not just New York City, and blacks tended to suffer more than anyone else.
In fact, the North had a truly hard time finding recruits post 1862, when the pro war sentiment had largely been evaporated by the boys coming home either mutilated by Southern bullets or shells, or in closed pinewood boxes. The chapter on Northern recruitment went into the brutal nature of Northern conscription, and I was a little shocked at how often draft dodgers were shot. It isn't illegal in times of war, but rarely done outside of the Civil War. And the North was fairly ruthless with those who tried to evade conscription.
For me the biggest revelation was the voting fraud that took place during the war in favor of the Republicans.
It was not uncommon for Union troops to be stationed at polling locations to intimidate Democrats or outright arrest them. And during the 1864 election, soldiers who voted for McClellan often had their ballots shredded before they were counted, or illegally switched in the mail for Republican ballots (or simply were not allowed access to Democrat ballots).
One thing that often doesn't get a mention was just how unpopular the Emancipation Proclamation was in the North. The fear of cheaper Black labor taking the manufacturing jobs was a very common thread throughout the discussion, as was the fact that the North wanted to end slavery (both as a means to secure colonizeable land for Whites, but also to eliminate economic competition from the South), but had zero interest in integration with freed Blacks or those already born in the North as freemen.
This book, however, was not just an expose of how unjust the North was or how complex the story of the Civil War truly is (something definitely lost in the modern telling in the generation since this series was printed), it also highlighted the charity and humanity of the common people, especially the women, of the North.
The Sanitary Commission, the work of the nebulous Red Cross and the likes of Clara Barton were well covered as was the care for the so many thousands of dreadfully wounded young men and boys coming from the meat grinder of the South.
This book was a refreshingly complex look at a truly complex subject matter. This was not a simplistic good guys versus bad guys narrative as so much of modern 'history' tends to be. This was a bare bones look at the skeletons in the North's closets, and a hard nosed investigation into the injustices the war meted out to the average Northern Yankee.
Definitely a highly recommended little book.
May 23, 2023
The books in this series are uniformly excellent. This one, which looks at the Northern home front, is particularly interesting. With so much attention on the war itself, it is easy to overlook (or fail to appreciate) the seismic economic transformation that occurred in the North during the war and that permanently and profoundly changed the nation. The review of the reaction to conscription efforts also reveals important history that is not widely remembered.
March 15, 2013
Much better than the one about the southern homefront...probably because of the resources available in the north.
August 31, 2014
Learn of the home front during the Civil War in the North.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews