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A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom
Bottom-up history at its very best, "A People's History of the Civil War" "does for the Civil War period what Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" did for the study of American history in general" ("Library Journal"). Widely praised upon its initial release, it was described as "meticulously researched and persuasively argued" by the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution."
Historian David Williams has written the first account of the American Civil War though the eyes of ordinary people--foot soldiers, slaves, women, prisoners of war, draft resisters, Native Americans, and others. Richly illustrated with little-known anecdotes and first-hand testimony, this pathbreaking narrative moves beyond presidents and generals to tell a new and powerful story about America's most destructive conflict.
"A People's History of the Civil War" is "readable social history" that "sheds fascinating light" ("Publishers Weekly") on this crucial period. In so doing it recovers the long-overlooked perspectives and forgotten voices of one of the defining chapters of American history.
Historian David Williams has written the first account of the American Civil War though the eyes of ordinary people--foot soldiers, slaves, women, prisoners of war, draft resisters, Native Americans, and others. Richly illustrated with little-known anecdotes and first-hand testimony, this pathbreaking narrative moves beyond presidents and generals to tell a new and powerful story about America's most destructive conflict.
"A People's History of the Civil War" is "readable social history" that "sheds fascinating light" ("Publishers Weekly") on this crucial period. In so doing it recovers the long-overlooked perspectives and forgotten voices of one of the defining chapters of American history.
777 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 7, 2005
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617 people want to read
About the author
David Williams
12 books7 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
A professor of history at Valdosta State University, David Williams received his Ph.D. in history from Auburn University in 1988. The author of numerous articles on Georgia history, the Old South, Appalachia, and the Civil War, Williams is the author of Rich Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley and Johnny Reb's War: Battlefield and Homefront and the coauthor of Gold Fever: America's First Gold Rush and Plain Folk in a Rich Man's War: Class and Dissent in Confederate Georgia. He lives in Valdosta, Georgia.
A professor of history at Valdosta State University, David Williams received his Ph.D. in history from Auburn University in 1988. The author of numerous articles on Georgia history, the Old South, Appalachia, and the Civil War, Williams is the author of Rich Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley and Johnny Reb's War: Battlefield and Homefront and the coauthor of Gold Fever: America's First Gold Rush and Plain Folk in a Rich Man's War: Class and Dissent in Confederate Georgia. He lives in Valdosta, Georgia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
June 10, 2020
David Williams' A People's History of the Civil War is, as the title suggests, a Howard Zinn-inspired revisionist look at the War Between the States. Williams' book has its interesting points: he devotes a great deal of time to the horrors of slavery, the exploitation of workers, draft resistance both North and South, the role of women and Native Americans in the war, which are all well-rendered. Unfortunately, Williams evinces the same hamfisted, reductive Marxism as Zinn, in viewing all of history through a Class Lens. He's no fan of the Confederacy, yet his writing often echoes Lost Cause defenses of the South by claiming Both Sides Were Bad, that Lincoln was a tyrant who didn't care about slavery and that slavery itself would have died without a war. It's easier to make these arguments when you don't bother to examine the motives of the participants: Williams sees no difference between proslavery, pro-Southern Copperheads in the North and draft resisters in the South. Never mind their differing motives or ideology: both oppose The State, therefore they're Good. Similarly, his astonishing claim that working class whites of the time lacked racism (only the rich, it's stated, can be racist) is belied by his own words, particularly his chapters on the New York Draft Riots and the postwar violence in the South. Abolitionists are only discussed to dismiss as racist; Lincoln is critiqued for his vacillations over slavery, but there's barely a mention of Radical Republicans; Frederick Douglass is literally mentioned twice, once when critiquing Lincoln and a second time to bemoan the failure of Reconstruction. It's a remarkably shallow and limited work that, at best, adds some fine grain detail our accepted portrait of the war; at worst, it's another example of fitting history to match a shaky ideological theme.
December 22, 2011
Extremely detailed history of the civil war from the point of view of ordinary white workers and farmers north and south, African-American slaves, and American Indians. A very doleful history...a history of bad faith, corruption, murder, and resistance by ordinary people.
I had not previously been aware of the degree of opposition to the Confederacy in the south, and during the war the sense of non-slave-owning whites that it was a "rich man's war." The conventions and votes for secession were characterized by violent intimidation & fraud. The slave owners were a minority of maybe 20 percent of the whites. Forced conscription was used to build the Confederate army while planters could easily obtain exemptions for themselves or their sons. By late 1863 two thirds of the Confederate army had deserted. Hatred of the planter elite led a number of whites to help organize slave rebellions. The author shows that the end of slavery was driven by the self-activity of the slaves themselves...growing disobedience and slowdowns on plantations, tens of thousands fleeing to the Union lines.
It was a rich man's war in the north. the author gives a good picture of how Lincoln was closely allied with northern capitalists. Lincoln's aggressive war of conquest of the south was begun due to pressure from northern industrialists. They were owned millions of dollars in loans and credits, they didn't want to lose low priced southern cotton for their mills, nor could they afford a tarriff barrier between themselves and southern cotton and markets. He also gives a good picture of entrenched racism against blacks throughout the north...such as states in the midwest passing laws to exclude blacks and violent mobs driving blacks out who tried to settle there.
The history of constant cheating and barbarity and genocidal actions against the American Indians during this period is almost hard to read it's so depressing. Such actions were taken by military leaders of the Confederacy (such as Col. Baylor of the famous Texas clan) in New Mexico or the state militia in California...governor Leland Stanford wanted a war of extermination, a "final solution" for the Indians.
I had not previously been aware of the degree of opposition to the Confederacy in the south, and during the war the sense of non-slave-owning whites that it was a "rich man's war." The conventions and votes for secession were characterized by violent intimidation & fraud. The slave owners were a minority of maybe 20 percent of the whites. Forced conscription was used to build the Confederate army while planters could easily obtain exemptions for themselves or their sons. By late 1863 two thirds of the Confederate army had deserted. Hatred of the planter elite led a number of whites to help organize slave rebellions. The author shows that the end of slavery was driven by the self-activity of the slaves themselves...growing disobedience and slowdowns on plantations, tens of thousands fleeing to the Union lines.
It was a rich man's war in the north. the author gives a good picture of how Lincoln was closely allied with northern capitalists. Lincoln's aggressive war of conquest of the south was begun due to pressure from northern industrialists. They were owned millions of dollars in loans and credits, they didn't want to lose low priced southern cotton for their mills, nor could they afford a tarriff barrier between themselves and southern cotton and markets. He also gives a good picture of entrenched racism against blacks throughout the north...such as states in the midwest passing laws to exclude blacks and violent mobs driving blacks out who tried to settle there.
The history of constant cheating and barbarity and genocidal actions against the American Indians during this period is almost hard to read it's so depressing. Such actions were taken by military leaders of the Confederacy (such as Col. Baylor of the famous Texas clan) in New Mexico or the state militia in California...governor Leland Stanford wanted a war of extermination, a "final solution" for the Indians.
August 14, 2020
I have to be honest - I picked up and put down this book several times before I decided to read it. It is a tome! Four Hundred and Ninety-Eight pages of dense text, Forty-Four pages of notes, and a Twenty-Two page bibliography. It is well worth every single page!
The last American History class I remember was when I in seventh grade. What I remember learning about the civil war was that it was all about the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, freeing the slaves. David Williams, in a very academic and well researched yet readable tome, trashes this idea. Williams makes the case that the American Civil War was a class war - the haves of rich, slave-owning, cotton plantations despots of the South and the haves of the rich, factory owning manufacturers of the North.
618,222 people died in the fighting of the US Civil War, 360,222 from the North and 258,000 from the South. Of course, that figure leaves out the huge number of non-combatants that died due to starvation and disease.
I was taught that the majority of people, both in the North and the South, supported their side of the war. I was taught that Lincoln was elected with a platform of ending slavery in the US. I was taught that people in the North felt that Black slaves were human beings while the people in the South felt that they were animals. I was taught that people in the North were appalled when states in the South seceded from the Union. I was taught wrong.
Just as Howard Zinn’s book A People's History of the United States opened my eyes to so much of the real American history, his student, David Williams, has written a book opening my eyes to the realties of the US Civil War. Each book, in its own way, explains so much about why, hundreds of years later, our country is still so racially divided. In the 1860’s Black lives clearly did not matter. Through both planned and unplanned misunderstanding, ingrained racism, governmental indifference, and misinformation that situation continues to exist in 2020.
Many of us are aware that the US population was manipulated to endorse the Spanish-American war after the Battleship Maine explosion. What I was not aware of was, forty years earlier, President Lincoln had setup an attack on Fort Sumter to get the North allied with him to fight the South.
Those who fought in the Civil War had the least investment in it. The rich and well off could purchase exemptions, get medical deferments, or send a proxy to fight in their place. For the poor there were no exceptions, just pickup a gun or be thrown in jail. And, as with nearly every war in history, there were many who profited by the Civil War. Millions were made by cotton and tobacco farmers in the South and manufacturers in the North. All of this money came out of the pockets of the same poor, working class. Williams makes a very good case that this war was all about class and little about emancipation.
The phrase, “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight” resonated throughout the four years of the US Civil War. With the men sent off to fight, the women and children were starving at home. In the South, plantation owners stopped growing food as they could make much more by growing tobacco and cotton. In the North, factory owners used the war to breakup unions and to pay women nearly nothing for toiling in the factories while their husbands were off fighting.
A People’s History of The Civil War is an eye opening book - at least for this White Northerner. Reading it will make you sad, it will make you angry, it will make you ashamed. It will also educate you to a history and social issue that you need to know more about. Once your eyes have been opened to the real history of the US Civil War so much of our current racial strife will make so much more sense to you. Do yourself a favor - study our history so that you can work to keep it from continuing to repeat itself.
The last American History class I remember was when I in seventh grade. What I remember learning about the civil war was that it was all about the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, freeing the slaves. David Williams, in a very academic and well researched yet readable tome, trashes this idea. Williams makes the case that the American Civil War was a class war - the haves of rich, slave-owning, cotton plantations despots of the South and the haves of the rich, factory owning manufacturers of the North.
618,222 people died in the fighting of the US Civil War, 360,222 from the North and 258,000 from the South. Of course, that figure leaves out the huge number of non-combatants that died due to starvation and disease.
I was taught that the majority of people, both in the North and the South, supported their side of the war. I was taught that Lincoln was elected with a platform of ending slavery in the US. I was taught that people in the North felt that Black slaves were human beings while the people in the South felt that they were animals. I was taught that people in the North were appalled when states in the South seceded from the Union. I was taught wrong.
Just as Howard Zinn’s book A People's History of the United States opened my eyes to so much of the real American history, his student, David Williams, has written a book opening my eyes to the realties of the US Civil War. Each book, in its own way, explains so much about why, hundreds of years later, our country is still so racially divided. In the 1860’s Black lives clearly did not matter. Through both planned and unplanned misunderstanding, ingrained racism, governmental indifference, and misinformation that situation continues to exist in 2020.
Many of us are aware that the US population was manipulated to endorse the Spanish-American war after the Battleship Maine explosion. What I was not aware of was, forty years earlier, President Lincoln had setup an attack on Fort Sumter to get the North allied with him to fight the South.
Those who fought in the Civil War had the least investment in it. The rich and well off could purchase exemptions, get medical deferments, or send a proxy to fight in their place. For the poor there were no exceptions, just pickup a gun or be thrown in jail. And, as with nearly every war in history, there were many who profited by the Civil War. Millions were made by cotton and tobacco farmers in the South and manufacturers in the North. All of this money came out of the pockets of the same poor, working class. Williams makes a very good case that this war was all about class and little about emancipation.
The phrase, “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight” resonated throughout the four years of the US Civil War. With the men sent off to fight, the women and children were starving at home. In the South, plantation owners stopped growing food as they could make much more by growing tobacco and cotton. In the North, factory owners used the war to breakup unions and to pay women nearly nothing for toiling in the factories while their husbands were off fighting.
A People’s History of The Civil War is an eye opening book - at least for this White Northerner. Reading it will make you sad, it will make you angry, it will make you ashamed. It will also educate you to a history and social issue that you need to know more about. Once your eyes have been opened to the real history of the US Civil War so much of our current racial strife will make so much more sense to you. Do yourself a favor - study our history so that you can work to keep it from continuing to repeat itself.
October 17, 2025
I found this book a little frustrating in that the first few chapters were very informative. The Civil War from the perspective of the less powerful and wealthy is something that has become a more researched topic over the last 10 or so years, and this book definitely has its place among them.
Where I found it frustrating is in its what aboutism. The author makes the case that both the North and South were both corrupt speculators, only concerned with maximizing their own profits. While I have no doubt that the North had its share of politicians and financiers who exploited war for their own gain, it’s a false equivalency to say that it was on the same level as the South.
In particular, the author has little love for Abraham Lincoln or “Lincoln Apologists” as he refers to people who I assume believe that Lincoln did some things that were legally questionable but ultimately good for the country. The author in fact doesn’t seem to believe that Lincoln actually had any higher purpose for the war than profit for himself and his friends at the expense of native and black Americans. That he seemingly is more critical of Lincoln than Jefferson Davis is particularly frustrating. Lincoln was no saint and he did come around on his views about race later than most of us would have liked, but come around he did. And he deserves credit that is not forthcoming in this book for being able to evolve.
When I was in school, American history books taught us that America could and never would do wrong.
Books like this tell us that America has and will probably only do wrong and the only good people are poor people.
Why for example in a book about the civil war do we have chapters on America’s wars with native Americans? Or women’s suffrage? Other than the author just wants to write about how terrible we have always been.
Denying women the right to participate in democracy and what we have done to native Americans are shameful moments in our history that deserve to be written about critically. They do not make sense in a book about the civil war.
I think we can and should look critically at how the Civil War came about and some of the exploitation that occurred during it. This however does not preclude us from acknowledging that there were those, even wealthy and powerful people, who actually did believe in making America a better place for all Americans. Yes there was greed and there was cynicism, but there was also hope for a better future. Let’s not lose the light by focusing solely on the darkness.
Where I found it frustrating is in its what aboutism. The author makes the case that both the North and South were both corrupt speculators, only concerned with maximizing their own profits. While I have no doubt that the North had its share of politicians and financiers who exploited war for their own gain, it’s a false equivalency to say that it was on the same level as the South.
In particular, the author has little love for Abraham Lincoln or “Lincoln Apologists” as he refers to people who I assume believe that Lincoln did some things that were legally questionable but ultimately good for the country. The author in fact doesn’t seem to believe that Lincoln actually had any higher purpose for the war than profit for himself and his friends at the expense of native and black Americans. That he seemingly is more critical of Lincoln than Jefferson Davis is particularly frustrating. Lincoln was no saint and he did come around on his views about race later than most of us would have liked, but come around he did. And he deserves credit that is not forthcoming in this book for being able to evolve.
When I was in school, American history books taught us that America could and never would do wrong.
Books like this tell us that America has and will probably only do wrong and the only good people are poor people.
Why for example in a book about the civil war do we have chapters on America’s wars with native Americans? Or women’s suffrage? Other than the author just wants to write about how terrible we have always been.
Denying women the right to participate in democracy and what we have done to native Americans are shameful moments in our history that deserve to be written about critically. They do not make sense in a book about the civil war.
I think we can and should look critically at how the Civil War came about and some of the exploitation that occurred during it. This however does not preclude us from acknowledging that there were those, even wealthy and powerful people, who actually did believe in making America a better place for all Americans. Yes there was greed and there was cynicism, but there was also hope for a better future. Let’s not lose the light by focusing solely on the darkness.
July 7, 2010
Although this book is largely written from an uncritically Marxist perspective in which "power elites" are vicious creatures with profit as their only motive and "good old plain folks" are plucky victims of the Man, it is very informative about the extent of corruption and cynicism on both sides during the US Civil War. Williams has an unpleasant tendency to present accusations and criticisms from a person's or group's enemies as fact (e.g., quoting anti-Lincoln articles from Democratic newspapers without warning readers that papers in that era were openly partisan), and he doesn't mind using hedge phrases like "all too many" to make what may be exceptional cases seem like elements of a diseased system.
Yet life in the mid-19th century was unfair, often to the point of atrocity, for slaves, free blacks, women, Native Americans, and poor whites. Williams illustrates this well, and shows how the Civil War was just another episode in the long struggle to achieve something approaching political and economic fairness in the United States. Those well versed in the history of the war will learn of a few new things and get a little perspective on what they already know, but by and large the story is the same familiar one.
I found this book to be a brisk read, but was disappointed that it made much less use of personal experiences than did its predecessor in this series, "A People's History of the American Revolution."
Yet life in the mid-19th century was unfair, often to the point of atrocity, for slaves, free blacks, women, Native Americans, and poor whites. Williams illustrates this well, and shows how the Civil War was just another episode in the long struggle to achieve something approaching political and economic fairness in the United States. Those well versed in the history of the war will learn of a few new things and get a little perspective on what they already know, but by and large the story is the same familiar one.
I found this book to be a brisk read, but was disappointed that it made much less use of personal experiences than did its predecessor in this series, "A People's History of the American Revolution."
February 20, 2016
"A People's History of the Civil War" is a provocative book. David Williams examines the period from the perspective of the "common folk" -- soldiers, women, blacks (on both sides of the conflict). This book offers a highly detailed view of how everyday people struggled with the war and the changes it brought, offering many firsthand accounts. At its best, the text illuminates fascinating individuals whose stories have otherwise not been heard in Civil War history texts before (particularly pro-Union Southerners) and lesser-known events in the war (such as the conflicts among American Indians in the west). Unfortunately, the book suffers from a major distraction -- namely, that Williams has a hard time keeping his personal biases and feelings out of the text. In particular he spends quite a bit of time blaming the war on class conflict, and painting the war as nothing more than a capitalist clash. While class does indeed have a hand in the war (such as the notorious "substitution laws" that allowed the wealthy to buy their way out of service), Williams overemphasizes its place in the conflict quite frequently, and this detracts from the overall work. Nonetheless, despite this "A People's History of the Civil War" is a good social history of America's most infamous conflict.
July 13, 2020
Given current BLM movement in the US I found the chapters on race riots and anti-Black attacks dating back to the mid 19th c, depressing. And overall I found the approach that gives voice to the common person and tells a familiar story from a different perspective really refreshing. But I got really bogged down in the long chapters and ultimately familiar, similar sounding micro narratives.
So, a very good reminder that history is also about the little people, the poor people, the women, and the people of colour. Certainly this is a different war than Ken Burns’.
But in the end I gave up and didn’t finish the book. Way too long.
So, a very good reminder that history is also about the little people, the poor people, the women, and the people of colour. Certainly this is a different war than Ken Burns’.
But in the end I gave up and didn’t finish the book. Way too long.
January 11, 2018
A poor book on a subject matter I’d like to better understand. His presentation was marred by repetitive and stilted language; negative even in places where it was not relevant to the main point, as if the author wanted to take a swipe on his way by. His sources, research, and examples are not up to a scholarly standard.
September 2, 2020
This book is one of the most interesting, powerful books I have ever read. Whereas most history books on the Civil War focus on the battles and military operations, this book focuses on the lives of the ordinary citizens back home, as well as the soldiers, both in the North and South. Author David Williams did an excellent job meticulously researching the lives of whites, blacks, and Native Americans during this war, and thus painting a detailed, compelling, and mind boggling story that few historians and history classes cover. This book is packed with so much information I highlighted so many parts of this book and needed a new highlighter. It’s a very long read but well worth the long haul. This should be required reading for all students, and for that matter, all Americans.
I selected this book to read as I was curious about what was life was like for Southerners during this war, as I have ancestors who lived in Mississippi. I wondered what life must have been for them and how in the world they, especially the women and children, survived. If you are curious about how the war affected women and children, this is the book for you as it answered my questions and gave me more than I could ever have imagined. Both Northern and Southern women of little means were tough and resilient and did what they had to do to survive.
What I took away from this book was that not everyone was supportive of this war, as I had been led to believe. I was really surprised by the large numbers of draft dodgers, and as the war progresses, deserters on both sides and how their communities aided and supported them.
Who knew there was an underground railroad transporting Confederate deserters north.
Who knew that the Union Army’s uniforms were made of cheap, shoddy fabric that fell apart within a short time.
The chapter on the military’s efforts to eradicate Native Americans during the war is very chilling and shameful.
President Lincoln is not portrayed in a good light. I walk away questioning all that I learned about him before reading this book. I would like to delve deeper into this president’s thoughts on slavery and the Civil War.
What disturbed me was the greed behind the war. The production of cotton and tobacco continued on a grand scale throughout the war, making many Northern and Southern men very wealthy, whereas the populace starved and were driven to riot and steal food just to survive. It didn’t surprise me at all that the Civil War favored and benefited the rich, and it deeply saddens me how that quest for riches hurt so many people economically. At times while reading this book I found parallels between the greed back then and the greed I see today.
The only Civil War story I have of my Confederate great grandfather is when an officer, trying to rally and rouse the dog-tired soldiers, told them “You don’t want your wives to be scrubbing Yankee floors, do you?” My great grandfather yelled back for all to hear, “They already scrub floors!” to which his comrades loudly cheered. That remark, reflecting a soldier’s anger and disenchantment with the war, matches exactly what the author presents in this book. I completely understand why my great grandfather said those words. This poor, non-slave owner was fighting a rich man's war.
I selected this book to read as I was curious about what was life was like for Southerners during this war, as I have ancestors who lived in Mississippi. I wondered what life must have been for them and how in the world they, especially the women and children, survived. If you are curious about how the war affected women and children, this is the book for you as it answered my questions and gave me more than I could ever have imagined. Both Northern and Southern women of little means were tough and resilient and did what they had to do to survive.
What I took away from this book was that not everyone was supportive of this war, as I had been led to believe. I was really surprised by the large numbers of draft dodgers, and as the war progresses, deserters on both sides and how their communities aided and supported them.
Who knew there was an underground railroad transporting Confederate deserters north.
Who knew that the Union Army’s uniforms were made of cheap, shoddy fabric that fell apart within a short time.
The chapter on the military’s efforts to eradicate Native Americans during the war is very chilling and shameful.
President Lincoln is not portrayed in a good light. I walk away questioning all that I learned about him before reading this book. I would like to delve deeper into this president’s thoughts on slavery and the Civil War.
What disturbed me was the greed behind the war. The production of cotton and tobacco continued on a grand scale throughout the war, making many Northern and Southern men very wealthy, whereas the populace starved and were driven to riot and steal food just to survive. It didn’t surprise me at all that the Civil War favored and benefited the rich, and it deeply saddens me how that quest for riches hurt so many people economically. At times while reading this book I found parallels between the greed back then and the greed I see today.
The only Civil War story I have of my Confederate great grandfather is when an officer, trying to rally and rouse the dog-tired soldiers, told them “You don’t want your wives to be scrubbing Yankee floors, do you?” My great grandfather yelled back for all to hear, “They already scrub floors!” to which his comrades loudly cheered. That remark, reflecting a soldier’s anger and disenchantment with the war, matches exactly what the author presents in this book. I completely understand why my great grandfather said those words. This poor, non-slave owner was fighting a rich man's war.
January 30, 2016
No war has left such an impression on the American character as its civil war. That conflict (1861-1865) claimed more American lives than either World War 2 or Vietnam, and remains the only great war to have taken place on American soil. (The war of independence took place here, but didn't occupy or ravage the landscape to any comparable degree.) The memory of it lives on, especially in the south where people fly Confederate flags from their yards and speak still of states' rights and the Cause. Despite its human and material costs, when the war is spoken of it is usually romanticized, depicted a battle between good and evil -- though whether the good was the Union fighting to destroy slavery or the South fighting to defend its rights varies on who is involved in the discussion. Enter A People's History of the Civil War, a merciless and fascinating treatment that exposes the weaknesses of traditional narratives and butchers illusions. It is both dynamite and bitter medicine -- powerful, necessary, and sometimes painful.
No serious historian would maintain that the Union invaded the South to free the slaves, or that the South severed ties with the Union purely in the defense of principle: anyone with an ounce of integrity would acknowledge contributing economic and material influences. At the very least one might say that the war was simply the violent expression of an conflict between two economic systems, that of the industrial and commercial north versus the traditional, agrarian south. Williams' account is more direct: the war was about money and power, just the same as any war. Even the abolitionists were motived in part by greed: northern businessmen didn't want their expansion into the west having to compete with the free labor of southern powers. Although Brooks' work is organized more thematically than chronologically (containing distinct sections on the role of women, labor, the lives of soldiers, reaction to conscription, the governments' treatment of women etc) he jumps in feet first by critically examining the legitimacy of secession. Contrary to popular belief -- the Confederate government is more loved now than it was when it actually existed -- secession was not a popular mandate. Brooks reveals how election on the question of secession were rigged, stolen, or done away with outright by the planters who saw the election of Lincoln as a threat to their way of life. Not only was the cutting of ties unpopular: so was the war that followed. Economic powers in the north were patently unwillingly to allow the south's resources to simply walk away from the union. Following Lincoln's call to arms, support for the two governments' cause rallied briefly, but soon fell away, leading to conscription acts in both parts of the country and fostering popular resentment against the government. Why did the South lose? The conventional answer of our usual narrative is that the South's lack of material resources doomed her against the industrious north...but Brooks notes on several occasions that the South never lost a battle for want of arms or ammunition: time and again, its weakness was the faltering support of the people for an uninspiring government and a cause not their own: Davis and Lee noted with urgent concern the rising deseration rates in their ranks as early as 1862.
The American Civil War was in short a rich man's war and a poor man's fight: not only was it created by the economic rivalry of competeing business interests, but these same men declined to take part in the fight once it was begun. When the initial emotional spasm of patriotism subsided and the volunteers fell away, both sides instituted conscription acts...but the wealthy were functionally exempt, either for practical reasons (because they could purchase substitutes) or by law (planters with more than twenty slaves were exempt from the draft). At least the northern elites contributed to the war effort through industrial production: in the south, planters took advantage of increased wartime prices for cotton and shifted emphasis to producing it instead of food, leading to mass and chronic starvation that endured throughout the war. The producers of war materials also looted soldiers and the government for all they were worth in selling supplies; a practice evidently a staple of American warmaking, for this was a principle complaint of Major General Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, dated 1935 and drawing on suppliers' behavior in the Great War. The soldiers' experience was generally one of misery: Brooks documents the inferior food, ghastly medical practices, harsh disicpline (promoted by the contempt of the wealthy officer class for the proles under their command), and the obscene misuse of soldiers using traditional tactics against modern weapons. A massed body of men in bright uniform makes a marvelous target for the gunners, a fact that Europe learned in 1914. Little wonder that the soldiers and their families at home protested so mightily; little wonder that they deserted. The loyalty they had, Brooks wrote, was to their comrades: though "The Cause" rung hollow after the first year of conflict, few soldiers were willing to simply abandon their friends and comrades to the dangers of war. They fought on not for the country, but for each other.
Alas, such solidarity is not to be found outside the soldiers' ranks. The war was a truly a civil war, not because it pit Americans from the north and south against one another but because it pit the common people against one another. They're horrifyingly fickle, "the people", first lyching one another for not supporting the war, then for supporting it; while the tale has a reliable villain in southern planters, there are precious few heroes to be found here in this text where the abolitionists are viciously anti-labor; the rich abuse the poor, men abuse the women, governments mistreat the Indians, and everybody hates the blacks. The usual strength of the People's History series is that its infuriating and saddening accounts of exploitation are redeemed by inspiring feats when the people rally together and overcome their oppressors. That never happens here: the people are continually set against one another, and as the bodycount rises one looks for a small sliver of hope in the fact that at least the slaves were freed and the south was forced to modernize. No such luck: freedmen were trapped in slavery by another name, tenancy-farming, or migrated northward to be abused in the factories by men who were just as fearful and prejudiced as planters of the south. This is no account for the faint of heart: it will force those who believe in popular sovereignty to face hard questions. How can a just and peaceful government be possible when people are so easy to set against one another? Such is the question posed to us by the legacy of the Civil War.
A People's History of the Civil War is a mighty contribution to American Civil War literature. It asks questions no other account would, explores facets of the conflict that would otherwise have gone hidden: it ignores military campaigns and politics to look at the lives of the people who were forced to fight and endure through the war. I read about the war obsessively during my high school years, and still time and again Brooks' work left me reeling. As powerful as it is, it has its weaknesses -- the editing is rough around the edges, and as much as the pages are saturated with primary sources protesting the war or bewailing the rich, it's easy to cherry pick -- but what it reveals is worth considering for anyone with an interest in the war.
No serious historian would maintain that the Union invaded the South to free the slaves, or that the South severed ties with the Union purely in the defense of principle: anyone with an ounce of integrity would acknowledge contributing economic and material influences. At the very least one might say that the war was simply the violent expression of an conflict between two economic systems, that of the industrial and commercial north versus the traditional, agrarian south. Williams' account is more direct: the war was about money and power, just the same as any war. Even the abolitionists were motived in part by greed: northern businessmen didn't want their expansion into the west having to compete with the free labor of southern powers. Although Brooks' work is organized more thematically than chronologically (containing distinct sections on the role of women, labor, the lives of soldiers, reaction to conscription, the governments' treatment of women etc) he jumps in feet first by critically examining the legitimacy of secession. Contrary to popular belief -- the Confederate government is more loved now than it was when it actually existed -- secession was not a popular mandate. Brooks reveals how election on the question of secession were rigged, stolen, or done away with outright by the planters who saw the election of Lincoln as a threat to their way of life. Not only was the cutting of ties unpopular: so was the war that followed. Economic powers in the north were patently unwillingly to allow the south's resources to simply walk away from the union. Following Lincoln's call to arms, support for the two governments' cause rallied briefly, but soon fell away, leading to conscription acts in both parts of the country and fostering popular resentment against the government. Why did the South lose? The conventional answer of our usual narrative is that the South's lack of material resources doomed her against the industrious north...but Brooks notes on several occasions that the South never lost a battle for want of arms or ammunition: time and again, its weakness was the faltering support of the people for an uninspiring government and a cause not their own: Davis and Lee noted with urgent concern the rising deseration rates in their ranks as early as 1862.
The American Civil War was in short a rich man's war and a poor man's fight: not only was it created by the economic rivalry of competeing business interests, but these same men declined to take part in the fight once it was begun. When the initial emotional spasm of patriotism subsided and the volunteers fell away, both sides instituted conscription acts...but the wealthy were functionally exempt, either for practical reasons (because they could purchase substitutes) or by law (planters with more than twenty slaves were exempt from the draft). At least the northern elites contributed to the war effort through industrial production: in the south, planters took advantage of increased wartime prices for cotton and shifted emphasis to producing it instead of food, leading to mass and chronic starvation that endured throughout the war. The producers of war materials also looted soldiers and the government for all they were worth in selling supplies; a practice evidently a staple of American warmaking, for this was a principle complaint of Major General Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, dated 1935 and drawing on suppliers' behavior in the Great War. The soldiers' experience was generally one of misery: Brooks documents the inferior food, ghastly medical practices, harsh disicpline (promoted by the contempt of the wealthy officer class for the proles under their command), and the obscene misuse of soldiers using traditional tactics against modern weapons. A massed body of men in bright uniform makes a marvelous target for the gunners, a fact that Europe learned in 1914. Little wonder that the soldiers and their families at home protested so mightily; little wonder that they deserted. The loyalty they had, Brooks wrote, was to their comrades: though "The Cause" rung hollow after the first year of conflict, few soldiers were willing to simply abandon their friends and comrades to the dangers of war. They fought on not for the country, but for each other.
Alas, such solidarity is not to be found outside the soldiers' ranks. The war was a truly a civil war, not because it pit Americans from the north and south against one another but because it pit the common people against one another. They're horrifyingly fickle, "the people", first lyching one another for not supporting the war, then for supporting it; while the tale has a reliable villain in southern planters, there are precious few heroes to be found here in this text where the abolitionists are viciously anti-labor; the rich abuse the poor, men abuse the women, governments mistreat the Indians, and everybody hates the blacks. The usual strength of the People's History series is that its infuriating and saddening accounts of exploitation are redeemed by inspiring feats when the people rally together and overcome their oppressors. That never happens here: the people are continually set against one another, and as the bodycount rises one looks for a small sliver of hope in the fact that at least the slaves were freed and the south was forced to modernize. No such luck: freedmen were trapped in slavery by another name, tenancy-farming, or migrated northward to be abused in the factories by men who were just as fearful and prejudiced as planters of the south. This is no account for the faint of heart: it will force those who believe in popular sovereignty to face hard questions. How can a just and peaceful government be possible when people are so easy to set against one another? Such is the question posed to us by the legacy of the Civil War.
A People's History of the Civil War is a mighty contribution to American Civil War literature. It asks questions no other account would, explores facets of the conflict that would otherwise have gone hidden: it ignores military campaigns and politics to look at the lives of the people who were forced to fight and endure through the war. I read about the war obsessively during my high school years, and still time and again Brooks' work left me reeling. As powerful as it is, it has its weaknesses -- the editing is rough around the edges, and as much as the pages are saturated with primary sources protesting the war or bewailing the rich, it's easy to cherry pick -- but what it reveals is worth considering for anyone with an interest in the war.
June 28, 2020
This was a unique study of the Civil War that did not focus on battles or famous generals but on the social groups in both North and South and how they were affected by the war. It was a great book to read in today's world as it effectively destroyed many of the myths of the Confederacy and demonstrated that it was in fact a "rich man's war but a poor man's fight". It revealed some rather startling facts about the way southerners viewed the war with many poor white farmers opposing secession and deserting the Confederate army in huge numbers by the war's end. It also demonstrated how many enslaved African Americans as well as white Confederate soldiers escaped to join the Union cause and how important that support was to eventual Union victory. This is a book well worth reading.
February 21, 2025
A very important book that challenges the idea that the civil was war was simply 'north vs south', when infact the majority on both sides never actually supported the war and resisted it right to the end.
However he comes to an incredibly bizzare conclusion to claim that the civil war was not a revolution, nor was there social upheaval or shift in power relations, despite the breaking of the slaveocracy and transfer of political power from the agricultural slave owning south to the commercial and industrial capitalist north.
Ultimately it reveals the limitations of 'peoples history' vs more complete of marxist history
However he comes to an incredibly bizzare conclusion to claim that the civil war was not a revolution, nor was there social upheaval or shift in power relations, despite the breaking of the slaveocracy and transfer of political power from the agricultural slave owning south to the commercial and industrial capitalist north.
Ultimately it reveals the limitations of 'peoples history' vs more complete of marxist history
November 12, 2023
Socialist-lens history of the American Civil War, with particular attention paid to how many white people in the South actually DIDN'T want secession and how many white people in the North DIDN'T want war, but also a good chapter on what Black people were willing to do to gain their freedom. Also a chapter on the genocide of the Native Americans that kept going strong between 1861 and 1865. And points out that after the war, the same white people were in power both North and South that had been in power before.
September 1, 2018
A grassroots perspective of the Civil War. Mr. Williams' work demonstrates the extent to which communities in the South did not support the Confederacy nor communities in the North support the Federal government. This helps cultivates a perspective of the Civil War that actually makes sense. The question about the Civil War isn't why the Confederacy lost (because it was the Confederacy that lost, not "the South"), but rather why did it take so long? Find answers here.
March 10, 2019
Although this book would qualify as revisionist history, it was still very readable. The author intersperses quotes from participants with a lively narrative and reasonable chapter sizes. I've read other books that have 100-plus page chapters. Ridiculous. This book keeps the chapters to thirty pages or less. Overall, a good general history of the Civil War and a good starting point for anyone looking to learn more about the conflict.
May 17, 2020
I have said to people many times while reading this book that it has changed a great deal of my thinking about the American Civil War. A great deal of the mythological vision of the conflict, like that promoted by movies like 'Gone With the Wind' and post-war romantics, has been completely blown apart by this excellent work. Personally I felt that the accounts of abuse of American indigenous peoples were excess to requirements for the main points of Civil War history being dealt with.
June 20, 2025
Interesting take on that period. The author covers the lives of everyday people before, during and after the war. My only complaint is when he gets on a theme, he beats it to death. For example, when he covers the extensive desertion that took place, he tells the story a of 50 people when 10 would probably have sufficed. It made for a very long book. I found myself skimming at times. Al in all, a book that needed to be written,
August 4, 2020
Very interesting and enlightening history. My only complaint was that it seemed awfully long. I read this as an ebook from my public library and I'm not sure how many pages it actually is, but each chapter seemed to drag on forever with dozens of examples of varjous incidents related to that particular topic.
Want to read
December 17, 2018When asked about suggestions on historical reads by Alex Lawson.
"A truly wonderful book that gets into all sort of issues. It’s also the kind of book that is divided into specific sections organized around topics so easy to flip around, read other books etc - it’s excellent" ~ Mike Elk
"A truly wonderful book that gets into all sort of issues. It’s also the kind of book that is divided into specific sections organized around topics so easy to flip around, read other books etc - it’s excellent" ~ Mike Elk
June 24, 2020
A fascinating, rare telling of the war.
An excellent overview of the common people's struggles during the war from a perspective rarely ever presented. This book includes a more accurate account also of the slaughtering of native people.
An excellent overview of the common people's struggles during the war from a perspective rarely ever presented. This book includes a more accurate account also of the slaughtering of native people.
April 18, 2022
Book pretty much points out that those who "require" war are rarely the folks who participate in the actual violence of war but are most likely to be folks who profit from war and their drive for money and power generally overwhelm the wants and needs of those who must fight and die in the battles.
May 19, 2019
if anything it was kinda hard to follow and at times seemed to be quite boring but it had some interesting things that got me hooked for the time being.
September 18, 2022
Its rare for me to wave the white flag but this book was so obviously skewed toward a vision of a socio-economic struggle I could not continue.
November 20, 2007
For a long time, the American Civil War became a war of valiant white Southerners fighting for "their way of life". History was re-written to be not about slavery or profits, but about "state's rights" against the government. Such figures like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis became heroes in the post-war South, while the people who fought the war were largely white-washed. Movies like "Gone With the Wind" or "Birth of a Nation" romanticize slavery and the ruling planter class. More importantly, dissenters against the war, especially in the South, were nearly written out of history. Only in the last 50 years has the swing back to the war being about slavery and a rich man's war, where nearly a million people lost their lives.
"A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom" does a superb job of explaining why the Civil War happened, as well as the struggles of all people, not just the politicians or generals during the war, and the major reasons for the defeat of the South beyond just plain military reasons. To every war, there is multiple reasons. The Southern Plantation owning class feared race war if their African slaves ever became free, then poor whites and poor blacks might unite against them. Throughout the 1850s and especially in the months prior to the start of the war, numerous bouts of paranoia of abolitionist plots to spark slave revolts appear in Southern Press (which the militant John Brown used to fan the fears of the planters.) The planters believed that their control of the South would be safer in a Slaveholder's republic than compromise with Northern industrialists. In the North, wealthy industrials and emerging capitalists feared losing access to cheap Southern cotton and agriculture, and therefore pressed their government not to let the Southern states leave. In that, they had a stake in continuing the slave system. Copperheads and pacifists throughout the North opposed the war, but were routinely shut down by Lincoln's government, who suspended habeas corpus.
Williams explores the hidden history behind the war which has seemingly been erased from history, such as the incredible amount of dissent against the war on both sides, but especially in the South where whole regions were strongly pro-union (especially poor white farmers who hated the ruling plantation owner class), in parts of the South like East Tennessee, West Virginia, North Alabama, West North Carolina, North Louisiana.) Nearly 500,000 Southerners ended up fighting for the union side, both in the US Armies and as guerrillas struggling against the Confederates. It is noted that the Confederates were both fighting the union armies and anti-planter guerillas, destroying the notion that the American Civil War was a regional war and not a true civil war.
The role of women deviates as well, exploring how Southern women actually helped end the war. In the South, most men were away in armies, leaving women behind to tend the crops and other such work by themselves. They felt the starvation of the war first hand, as the Plantations of the South, a supposed breadbasket, continued to produce cash crops such as cotton and tobacco instead of food like corn and wheat. The first to demand bread from the government were women, and Williams documents several big bread riots in the South by women. He also documents several cases of female spies and nurses, women who dressed as men to serve in the armies, and women openingly telling men to desert the war effort.
for the rest of the review, go to http://www.woodenshoebooks.com/review...
"A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom" does a superb job of explaining why the Civil War happened, as well as the struggles of all people, not just the politicians or generals during the war, and the major reasons for the defeat of the South beyond just plain military reasons. To every war, there is multiple reasons. The Southern Plantation owning class feared race war if their African slaves ever became free, then poor whites and poor blacks might unite against them. Throughout the 1850s and especially in the months prior to the start of the war, numerous bouts of paranoia of abolitionist plots to spark slave revolts appear in Southern Press (which the militant John Brown used to fan the fears of the planters.) The planters believed that their control of the South would be safer in a Slaveholder's republic than compromise with Northern industrialists. In the North, wealthy industrials and emerging capitalists feared losing access to cheap Southern cotton and agriculture, and therefore pressed their government not to let the Southern states leave. In that, they had a stake in continuing the slave system. Copperheads and pacifists throughout the North opposed the war, but were routinely shut down by Lincoln's government, who suspended habeas corpus.
Williams explores the hidden history behind the war which has seemingly been erased from history, such as the incredible amount of dissent against the war on both sides, but especially in the South where whole regions were strongly pro-union (especially poor white farmers who hated the ruling plantation owner class), in parts of the South like East Tennessee, West Virginia, North Alabama, West North Carolina, North Louisiana.) Nearly 500,000 Southerners ended up fighting for the union side, both in the US Armies and as guerrillas struggling against the Confederates. It is noted that the Confederates were both fighting the union armies and anti-planter guerillas, destroying the notion that the American Civil War was a regional war and not a true civil war.
The role of women deviates as well, exploring how Southern women actually helped end the war. In the South, most men were away in armies, leaving women behind to tend the crops and other such work by themselves. They felt the starvation of the war first hand, as the Plantations of the South, a supposed breadbasket, continued to produce cash crops such as cotton and tobacco instead of food like corn and wheat. The first to demand bread from the government were women, and Williams documents several big bread riots in the South by women. He also documents several cases of female spies and nurses, women who dressed as men to serve in the armies, and women openingly telling men to desert the war effort.
for the rest of the review, go to http://www.woodenshoebooks.com/review...
February 14, 2020
Very interesting representation of the civil war from a different perspective. Makes you think about what you might do faced with the same situation. You develop empathy for those caught up in the whirlwind of the times. Makes you wonder how we teach history.
September 18, 2015
With an introduction scribed by the late great Howard Zinn (and the book edited by same), I figured I just had to add this book to my collection. It bills itself as a history of the marginalized groups of this era, those seldom represented in traditional history. I found it at my favorite local used bookstore, Magus Books, which is near University of Washington, and I scooped it immediately.
The tome sat in the upstairs powder room for months, but we didn’t look at it all that often. I had trouble climbing on board. Eventually I realized there were two things bothering me here. One is that it treats both Union and Confederate governments, along with the powerful moneyed interests backing the two sides of the conflict, as equally wrong and equally culpable. With this I sharply disagree. Whereas no doubt plenty of war profiteers made a great deal of money, and no doubt working people on both sides deserved better pay and greater prosperity, this was not an equally-wrong war. In fact, the first Marxist to live in the USA came here from Europe to fight for the Union, because that was the way to move history forward. So in a sense I disagreed with the premise of the whole book.
That much done, I noted that the overall tone was more cynical than I consider warranted. For me, the American Civil War was the last truly heroic conflict in which US forces fought. It also distinguished itself by producing an unusually high number of casualties where high ranking officers were concerned. You didn’t see American generals get dead in these proportions in either of the world wars, nor Korea, Vietnam, or any of the conflicts in the Middle East. So the snarky manner in which Williams refers to the disparity between Union brass and foot soldiers is not well placed. I found it abrasive.
In addition, if we’re talking about marginalized peoples, excuse me Mr. Williams, but where are the Black folk? The author seems to have mislaid some four million former slaves. I kept flipping through this volume trying to find some, but they are underrepresented quite badly; one might even say the author has marginalized them.
The one worthwhile thing here, the thing that kept that third star in its place, is the extensive attention paid to Native peoples during this time. I was aware of the role of the Cherokees and that was the sole extent of my knowledge of which way American Indians chose to side, when they chose a side at all. I got something for my money other than frustration and regret; I really had to look hard to find it, though.
Consequently, those doing specific research having to do with the role of Native Americans during the American Civil War should get this book. I recommend it for that niche audience only.
The tome sat in the upstairs powder room for months, but we didn’t look at it all that often. I had trouble climbing on board. Eventually I realized there were two things bothering me here. One is that it treats both Union and Confederate governments, along with the powerful moneyed interests backing the two sides of the conflict, as equally wrong and equally culpable. With this I sharply disagree. Whereas no doubt plenty of war profiteers made a great deal of money, and no doubt working people on both sides deserved better pay and greater prosperity, this was not an equally-wrong war. In fact, the first Marxist to live in the USA came here from Europe to fight for the Union, because that was the way to move history forward. So in a sense I disagreed with the premise of the whole book.
That much done, I noted that the overall tone was more cynical than I consider warranted. For me, the American Civil War was the last truly heroic conflict in which US forces fought. It also distinguished itself by producing an unusually high number of casualties where high ranking officers were concerned. You didn’t see American generals get dead in these proportions in either of the world wars, nor Korea, Vietnam, or any of the conflicts in the Middle East. So the snarky manner in which Williams refers to the disparity between Union brass and foot soldiers is not well placed. I found it abrasive.
In addition, if we’re talking about marginalized peoples, excuse me Mr. Williams, but where are the Black folk? The author seems to have mislaid some four million former slaves. I kept flipping through this volume trying to find some, but they are underrepresented quite badly; one might even say the author has marginalized them.
The one worthwhile thing here, the thing that kept that third star in its place, is the extensive attention paid to Native peoples during this time. I was aware of the role of the Cherokees and that was the sole extent of my knowledge of which way American Indians chose to side, when they chose a side at all. I got something for my money other than frustration and regret; I really had to look hard to find it, though.
Consequently, those doing specific research having to do with the role of Native Americans during the American Civil War should get this book. I recommend it for that niche audience only.
August 1, 2008
I give this book 5 stars for content and 3 for read =ability. It is amazing in its examination of the class issues behind the Civil War, which is rarely discussed. It is also critical of Lincoln, which one never sees...Fielding viewpoints of poor whites, women, African Americans, and American Indians is flat out revolutionary.
In case all those lost cause southerners forgot...there were many, many poor whites that had no interest in fighting for a country established to keep wealthy whites in power.
In case all those lost cause southerners forgot...there were many, many poor whites that had no interest in fighting for a country established to keep wealthy whites in power.
October 6, 2014
This book will cut you wide open. The Civil War was thousands of times worse than you previously imagined. It was more brutal, ruthless, violent, vile, corrupt and heinous than you realized. This book attests to these shameful facts.
The war was not universally supported on either side and was, in fact, violently opposed, particularly in the South. But not for the reasons you might assume.
The savagery of the war is revealed here. Be prepared. You may not get over it.
The war was not universally supported on either side and was, in fact, violently opposed, particularly in the South. But not for the reasons you might assume.
The savagery of the war is revealed here. Be prepared. You may not get over it.
July 9, 2012
A truly remarkable book in model of Howard Zinn and I think it stands up to his work. It dives into not just the aura of classism in the war but also the peace movements on both sides to stop it. I gave it one star shy of five because he spends far to little time talking about the political reasons for war. He talks about the secession conventions but not much about the content.
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